


Nuée Ardente

by Asuka Kureru (Askerian)



Series: jaeger x townie otp [1]
Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Action/Adventure, Bad Flirting, Burn Wounds, Escape, M/M, Violence!, how do you ever get laid, it is a mystery, lava., no seriously Veli stop, romance!, some internalized homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-02-11 11:52:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 45,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2067129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askerian/pseuds/Asuka%20Kureru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The brand new secret tunnel behind Frau Crina's Bar and Bagels had not been outfitted with lamps, and it was the middle of a drizzly mountain night.</p><p>The reddish glow and dry heat that slowly grew the farther Sorin went had him chanting "Don't be lava, don't be lava" from the second he noticed his hair was drying to the time the tunnel opened onto a ridiculously large cave.</p><p>It was, of course, lava. </p><p>--<br/>Sorin Petrescu is a perfectly normal blacksmith's apprentice, and is perfectly content with his life. He did not sign on to discover things he shouldn't know and go on the run with a Jägermonster.</p><p>Or make out with him, either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For my readers who don't know Girl Genius:
> 
> -Sparks are mad geniuses. They fall into a mindset called the madness place and then invent things that warp or even break the laws of physics, they go on long rants about how they will SHOW THEM MWAHAHA, and they collect minions who get completely fascinated by their genius. Normal people often can't recreate their results. Then again sometimes the results really shouldn't be replicated holy crap why did you think it was a good idea to invent a machine to replace blood with molten brass. D:  
> -Constructs are created, living beings -- could look like anything, from purely normal human to any strange Frankenstein pile of awkward pieces. Often there's some discrimination against them.  
> -Clanks are steampunk, gear-style robots/mechanisms. The very advanced ones develop something like AI, but the overwhelming majority of them are just automatons.  
> -Most towns are surrounded by walls because outside the walls in the wastelands things roam and it's generally pretty dangerous to travel.  
> -Jägermonsters all talk in this horrible phonetic dialect and believe it or not I toned it down. XD
> 
> -Baron Klaus Wulfenbach is a spark who decided he was hella tired of the lawlessness and crazy experiments and wars everywhere and went about imposing peace through superior firepower. Most people at ground level agree to say that things are much better under him, but noblemen think a mere baron has no business ruling them, other sparks get all offended that someone would tell them they can't use their peasants as base materials to build a floating steam-powered castle, etcetera.

The brand new secret tunnel behind Frau Crina's Bar and Bagels had not been outfitted with lamps, and it was the middle of a drizzly mountain night.

The reddish glow and dry heat that slowly grew the farther Sorin went had him chanting "Don't be lava, don't be lava" from the second he noticed his hair was drying to the time the tunnel opened onto a ridiculously large cave.

It was, of course, lava.

He flattened himself against the wall of the tunnel -- black, bubbly stone -- his heart trying to crawl its way up his throat. Vulkanburg was nestled in an ancient caldera; there was nothing inherently suspicious about volcanic rock. The squad of hulking creatures down there on the bank of the lava lake maneuvering with odd flamethrowers made him a bit too aware of how the tunnel had appeared in the first place.

Noise came up to him in a cacophony of unintelligible voices, clicking, cooling stone, bubbling. Even so high up the heat of the lava made his nostril hairs curl up. He didn't get how the minions working down there hadn't been baked already.

He scanned them all -- five, six -- ten, twice that many, looking for a swinging black braid. There had been forks in the tunnel but he'd been so sure --

There. There she was.

Rozalia was making a beeline for the center of the mass, waving a sheet of paper overhead. Sorin didn't need to hear the words to read them all over her body. " _Mistress! Mistress!!_ " She was so excited. Good news.

She'd been so excited slipping into the passage that she hadn't even seen Sorin. Hadn't heard him call, despite all rules of prudence and the late, quiet hour, the curfew.

Master Iliescu was going to cry.

He looked over the cave a last time. It must spread under half the town, it was so large. The creatures looked like clanks, only without the shine of metal to them. Not like flesh either. Puppets maybe, animate statues. All well-armed.

Minions opened a gate and a thread of molten gold flowed into a series of molds that reminded him of the stone clanks. Others manned levers and control panels he couldn't make sense of; spark stuff.

Nothing he could do, if the Viscountess decided on war. Nothing he should. And perhaps there was some threat coming that they needed protection for, though he would have assumed the Baron's Peace would ensure they receive reinforcements for the asking. But Rozalia he could drag out of here, talk sense into... maybe...

Yeah, talking someone into abandoning their madboy of choice rarely went well. He gritted his teeth, raked sweaty curls out of his face, sank into a crouch. At worst he would just kidnap her. Her father would sort her out. Or forge pretty leg irons for her, either or.

"-- _perfect!_ "

All the hair went up along his spine.

This -- cutting through the noise, stretching to the limits of the room -- this was the voice of a Spark in the grip of madness.

" _\--report from Plovdiv that the Tectonic Dismantler is working at the maximum planned capacity! Bwahahaha!_ "

...Sorin had no clue what tectonic meant but he was sure it couldn't be good. Plovdiv was hundreds of miles away. He tried to hope it was the kind of weapon that left the area around its user untouched, for at least town-wide levels of 'area'.

And Rozalia stood at the Viscountess' left hand, face upturned in awe.

She had to come out at some point. (Never mind that no one had seen her in town for a week, that she hadn't been home for two.) She had to come out and there was a pretty even chance she'd use the same tunnel she had used to come inside. (There was, right? There was.)

He inched away from the opening, cautiously, and then turned on hands and knees to crawl toward the first bend. The tools in his satchel clinked together briefly, and he froze, eyes wide -- but no reaction out there, he was still safe, there was no way they'd heard. Breathing out, he shifted--

"Mistress! Mistress! _Intruder!!_ "

Sorin jerked like he'd put his hand down on a live wire, whirled around. Down on the floor a guard was racing to the Viscountess, same way Rozalia had, not the same emotion behind it at all.

He saw the minions flinch, start to scan the walls of the cave, the tunnels' openings; he tried to move back, tripped himself, landed on his ass.

A hand pointed to him.

" _There!_ "

He saw Rozalia turn. Recognize him.

He was fleeing in the next second, scrabbling on hands and knees and then running, uncoordinated from terror but all his limbs agreeing on _forward_ , on _fast_.

"-- _There! Construct!_ _Get him!_ "

The tunnel twisted this and that way; he barreled past a forking path and only noticed after he was five, ten steps past, and didn't, couldn't stop and go make sure he was going down the right one, oh by all his ancestors he was going to get lost, get caught, die here in the furnace-dark -- this one looked familiar but what if he was wrong?

Yells resonated behind him, _wretched beast, traitor, cursed spy_. He kept running.

Then they seemed to come from before him, and he stopped.

He was almost blind from the lava, his rainy-night vision hadn't yet come back and his hands were scuffs and bruises all over from catching the walls, but the light of the torches, _that_ he could see.

No tunnel, no _other_ tunnel, no fork no big rock no place to hide no nothing --

Something wrapped around his neck, covered his face. Shrieking, he threw himself back into it -- there was nothing behind him, not from the shoulder blades down; he tried to drop his weight to the ground, make it drop him, and choked hanging instead.

It swung him up by the neck and the back of his shirt and then he was being shoved in the dark against rocks and something -- a body. He could see nothing, understood nothing. The slope was bad and his fingers wouldn't catch; he backslid into the other -- person, thing, monster and it --

Caught him, an arm across his chest, hand (too big _too big_ ) tightening on his throat, his back pressed to someone's -- hand on his face, mouth, _no_ \--

" _Shh_."

He shushed.

He was on someone's lap up an almost vertical shaft in the rock and if he didn't shush he was going to be choked out until he was quiet. In the middle of his terror that was something he understood with crystal clarity.

Under them two small mobs met screeching -- firelight danced on the rocks. Raised voices. Flesh impacting with flesh.

"--Ow!"

"You lost him!"

"No, you--"

"Stop -- fight each other!"

The chest against his back jerked like a suppressed laugh.

Fighting each other, in frustration, confusion, anger. One of the men down there said something about going back to check down the last fork. Sorin closed his eyes so he would stop seeing the torchlight and breathed, trembled.

" _Stop that_ ," someone breathed in his ear, barely enunciating. " _If your tools clang I'm dumping you._ "

Sorin found that one of his hands was on someone's arm and the other one on -- probably his knee -- and suddenly he was squeezing for all he was worth. He threw his head back -- not hard, but in rage. If there hadn't been a hand covering his mouth he might have yelled, _how is that supposed to help_?!

(Which probably would have been bad. But.)

The man didn't dump him or stab him with the handful of knives Sorin could feel on his neck, which was something he only thought to be grateful almost half a minute afterwards. He was laughing again. It made Sorin so mad he almost didn't notice when the mob broke up.

The tunnels would be infested with minions, though. Maybe with stone clanks even, though they seemed a bit big for the tunnels -- they did have those guns, and the more he thought about it, the more he thought they weren't flamethrowers but _lava_ -throwers, which was arguably even worse. He pointed a finger up the shaft, exhaled against the leathery palm.

The man shook his head. " _Blocked_."

Damn. So then how--

All his organs tried to lodge themselves up his throat at once. He didn't have enough air to scream. They landed with a thud and he was still getting his bearings when he was shoved forward in the dark.

He ran. Dizzy and barely knowing where the ground was, but he ran. It was that or dying. He was someone's _decoy_ and he still ran, there wasn't a choice. He wanted to be home, he wanted to never have broken the curfew, never have caught sight of Rozalia.

They were coming too damn close to the torchlight, too close but the other man was right on his heels and then they turned a corner at a dead run and a wall of backs blocked their paths

"Plow through!" the man behind him yelled, almost _joyous_.

He was never sure afterwards how he'd only bumped people out of his way, how he hadn't fallen or been grabbed. He was a blacksmith's apprentice, he had muscles on muscles, but he'd never been tall and they were lined up five deep, he was not that strong, he was not -- he was free of the throng, he was galloping away at breakneck speed and somehow not breaking anything.

Furious yelling chased them -- it took him too long to realize only the yelling did that, and then he hit a wall at a full run and tottered back, fell.

He was caught by the arm, yanked back up. "Hoy, whaddyou--"

Sorin wheezed, winded. "I'm _blind_ in here, you jerk!"

"Hrrm." A rough (too-big) hand closed on his wrist. He let the man tow him, panting, dizzy with the impact and his terror.

He must have tripped them somehow -- the man had, or dropped a trap behind him or _something_. Sorin couldn't even hear yelling over the pounding in his ears any longer.

His shoes clinked weird on the rocks, not quite like steel-toed boots. He guided them in the dark, right, left, right; Sorin was hopelessly lost.

Only... "--I smell rain," he said, halting, unsure. Did he really? The dampness felt almost good on his dry skin.

A grunt. "Mm. Almost there."

He stopped walking then, so abruptly Sorin walked right into his back, nose first between his shoulder blades. "Ow!"

"Say, kiddo, how much did hyu see, 'zactly?"

Sorin froze, caught in conflicting impulses. Say everything, so he'd think him useful? But he'd stop needing him. What if he killed Sorin for spying, what if he just wanted to make sure Sorin hadn't ... he'd read too many spy stories, and now he just, which way to jump? He didn't know.

"I heard the name," he said, cautiously. "Of the Viscountess' invention."

He had. What was it again? Tik-toking. No. Ticking tonic. Something close.

If he admitted he'd forgotten he'd be useless, he'd be killed--

"--and how far it worked. The range."

The man gave his caught wrist a little squeeze. Not painful, just -- unexpectedly prickly. "Hmph. Guess Hy really can't get hyu killed, then."

He dragged Sorin after him at a run. Sorin went, because there was no choice, completely blind and feeling the walls brush past at speeds he didn't like.

The guy didn't even sound worried. Either he was crazy or...

There were pointy things against his wrist. Not knives.

Earlier they'd been yelling about a construct.

"She has stone clanks," he tried to say, and then the tunnel lightened and they turned into another, bigger gallery and bulldozed right through a trio of guards, whispering to each other around a snuffed torch.

"Sorry guyz!" the -- construct? his legs were -- there were things flopping that didn't look like -- that looked maybe like -- the construct yelled. "Hy can't pummel hyu today!"

"Don't yell!" Sorin moaned, "you'll--"

Suddenly wet was falling on him and there were little glowing lights at surprising distances, and they were outside, back in the streets. Not where he'd come in but he was sure in a second he would recognize it, only at the exit of the backstreet they'd come out on there was a squad of the stone clanks, and they'd seen them.

The construct charged them barehanded.

Freed, Sorin stood, indecisive -- the street ended here, no doors to be forced open, and there was no way he could get through the stone clanks on his own. Turning his back on the tunnel, though -- he took a few steps closer to the fight, hesitated.

The construct had legs that folded weird in his dress uniform pants, one joint too many, like giant goat's legs, or a devil from some old Bible gravure, maybe.

That was a bit less important than the fact that he'd already broken off two stone arms and a leg, and that he was in the middle of total chaos, and was laughing like he was mad.

Not like the madness place, though. Not quite like that.

A noise behind him had him whirling around. Three liveried guards -- human -- burst out of the tunnel, weapons out.

"Halt! Civilian!"

Oh, he was so finished. So caught. At this point, after all that terror, it was almost a relief.

His hand was in his satchel for some reason, searching for his biggest hammer. Finding tongs instead. It was okay, it wasn't like he'd brought any of the big hammers, not for such fiddly repairs.

One of the soldiers lunged for him. Sorin stumbled back, pulling at the tongs, only they wouldn't come, too well-secured, they wouldn't --

Something whistled past, hit the guard in the helmet so hard he flew off his feet, landed flat on his back. Didn't move again.

" _Whoops sorry forgot!_ " the construct yelled, and then gravity did something Sorin had not signed on to experience. Something impacted with the small of his back; his stomach tried to evacuate the premises.

He was jerked up, down, he wasn't sure, and when he could make sense of things again they were standing on a roof; he was balanced precariously on the man's shoulder, belly up, all his muscles straining not to let gravity fold him backwards now that it was catching up. He squirmed to be put down, was twitched across the construct's shoulders in a fireman's carry instead, and then -- jump.

The street was a lot lower on the other side. Being built along the rim of the caldera did that. The outer streets were... slope-y.

He didn't have a lot of air, so he didn't scream very loud.

"Hokay, hyu need to shot op!" the construct growled.

Sorin's answer wasn't exactly coherent. He'd jumped on top of another house again, bouncing off a bench and a mailbox on his way up.

"Not that way not that way _not that way!_ "

"Hmm?"

"Lava pits," he babbled as they kept advancing toward the rim, " _not_ shielded no heat sink we will _roast_ \--"

There was a reason Vulkanburg was built in the _caldera_. Viscountess Vaduva had canalized all the flow to the outside slopes. It drew very pretty, very exit-less labyrinths.

"Gates vill be guarded. Got a better idea, dollink?"

Sorin had the horrible suspicion that even if he hadn't been terrified and his brain shaken with every bounce he wouldn't have found one. "Um. No?"

"Great! Gates it iz."

He changed directions without warning; Sorin's head snapped back. Then they were racing downslope toward the main plaza. On wet tiles, under the rain. He was pretty sure the man had hooves. He waited, almost resigned, for the construct to slip.

He didn't see the flicker of firelight to the side until the construct was already dodging. They landed in a street, shutters all closed. Something splattered heavily against the roof where they'd been, glowed gold and then red as it sank into the tiles.

Lava. Sorin stared, horrified, praying for it to cool before it went right through and started a fire in the rafters. He could hear the rain sizzling as it plinked on it. Those little drops would never be enough.

"Woo! Target-rich enfi-vi -- place. Fun times!"

... Oh no.

They were surrounded.

They were surrounded but the construct picked a side, went charging like a bull -- muzzle of a lava-thrower aimed at th--already dodging, and picking up speed, and then he let go of Sorin's arm and grabbed the neck of his shirt and swung him right on top of a roof in passing.

Sorin rolled dizzily up the tiles, brain shaken, head hurting, ribs bruised, and then came to a stop halfway up the slope and started rolling the other way.

He was still scrambling to catch himself when the explosion rattled the house.

There was more light in the street now than there had been. When he peered down to check he found puddles of lava eating holes in the pavement, the remnants of a lava-thrower, and a very dead -- oh great God above -- soldier. Several of the stone clanks were squirming on the ground, leg joints broken so they folded the wrong way around. The other soldiers were standing back from the last intact clank, and he didn't get why until it toppled slowly forward and the construct stood and grinned.

His uniform vest's sleeve was shredded up to the elbow and he dripped blood like a faucet. He was alone, and the group at the other end of the street was catching up at a fast clip.

There were so many teeth in that smile that Sorin didn't even find it strange when the soldiers with the lava-throwers took an uncertain step back.

"Reinforcements!" Sorin yelled.

The construct's eyes flicked up to him, to the other end of the street and its stone clanks running at him--

" _Behind!_ "

Too late.

A jet of lava burst up the street, splattered bright thick drops all over the place -- it had hit something -- construct's arm? No, a rock, a stone clank's part, the construct had parried at the last second, was bounding across the distance to --

In the next second he'd stolen the lava gun and melted the legs off the last stone clanks. They crashed face down on the pavement.

He was still grinning -- too wide, too pleased. Too hungry. Like that -- with the flames and the blood and the unhinged _delight_ \-- he did look way too much like a demon from hell. The half-dozen soldiers left took another few steps back, and then broke and ran. He started chasing them.

"Wait! You're on fire!" Sorin managed to yell as he went past, and threw a tile to get his attention.

It shattered harmlessly on the paved street. The construct braked, pivoted to stare him down in turn -- and threw himself in the nearest puddle, back first, cursing.

The street started shaking with heavy stone steps, several sets, in formation. The construct hauled himself onto the roof still dripping.

There was blood, he smelled like burned meat, his clothes were peppered with charred holes -- and he crouched like a beast before Sorin, ready to pounce.

"How far," he said, oddly quietly, oddly intense, "would hyu say zat weapon hyu heard about gets."

Oh red fire. Sorin couldn't give his intel now, he couldn't, he -- "Miles," he gasped. "Hundreds of miles, she said --"

A sigh, and he seemed to deflate, just a little. "Drat."

A clawed hand reached for him. Sorin flinched, a reflex. He was pulled up on his feet anyway and then --

Had that been a wince?

Then the construct was flinging Sorin across his shoulders again and taking off running for the gates.

His oddly smart uniform jacket was drenched, and it wasn't only with water.

Stone clanks everywhere. No cover on the plaza. The gate would be guarded.

So many stone clanks he'd seen down there in the cave. The construct was terrifying, but he would never get them all.

Little grunts, flinches on landing, when Sorin's weight came down on his shoulders. He wasn't one of the madboy creations that didn't feel the pain.

The ground rushed under them in sudden bounces, in fits and starts, tiles and then streets and then tiles; Sorin's stomach was bruised, was trying to crawl up his throat, he could have cried with terror. His tools dug into his side with each landing, into the construct's slick, dripping shoulder.

He wanted nothing more than to crawl through someone's window and hide at the bottom of their closet, shake until the monsters passed.

The curfew was absolute. Everyone in Vulkanburg knew that. Nighttime was when the Viscountess expected all her loyal subjects to be snugly in bed, and she'd taken a madgirl's fancy to the idea that proper rest was essential for productivity. There would be no shutters open anywhere in town, not even with the noise they were making. Especially not with the noise they were making. And they were arrowing straight for a trap, but there was nowhere else that the walls would --

" _Left!_ "

"Wot?"

He -- somehow -- freed a hand -- regretted it instantly -- yanked on the man's long, floppy ear. "Left! Left, left, the aqueduct, _left!_ "

No one in town could have climbed those smooth columns, jumped half that high.

Even for the construct it was going to be ...

He thought the construct answered something, but he couldn't hear past the blood rushing in his ears, the wind as they changed directions.

He'd been thinking of jumping from _under_ the aqueduct. Climbing the rest of the way up, maybe, if those claws -- he hoped -- could make their own handholds.

What happened instead was that the construct threw himself at the chapel, those hooves finding purchase on the upper edge of a window's stone frame -- one inch wide, maybe, Sorin's face almost hit the wall straight on -- and ricocheted straight up, and they were several stories over the highest roofs in this area of town, coming at a dead run to the plaza the chapel stood on...

... Flying.

There were guards underneath staring up in consternation, there was the Viscountess in mid-snarl. (There was Rozalia.) There were all his organs floating like gravity didn't concern them (they were lying.)

Impact, hard -- stone, bone-bruising on his arms, his wrist; his forehead exploded in pain. He slapped half-blind at the bricks --

The edge. The aqueduct's edge.

He wasn't too sure how neither one of them fell off. His grip on the edge was one-handed; he slipped halfway off the construct's shoulder as the construct hauled himself up by the strength of his arms and pure stubbornness. One of Sorin's legs wrapped awkward and desperate around his back, his waist -- clothes drenched, he was slipping --

A last heave, and they both toppled over the wall and into about four or five feet of water.

Sorin resurfaced, spluttering, to laughter.

"Hy guess that will do for a bath. Come on, keed, up we go!"

"One minute," he protested, panting. The bricks were slippery under his feet.

A wet, animal snort. "Dey vill be _shootink_ in a minute. Move."

 _But the water_ , Sorin wanted to say, there was no way they'd risk ruining the town's water supply? But he caught Sorin's wrist again and started hauling. The incline wasn't steep, the water slow, but they still had to fight the current and Sorin was in up to his chest -- exhausting.

In the faint light coming from the town underneath he could see a lot of shredded cloth before him, a mess of burned fibers and wet dark things that he was glad he couldn't see better. He made more of an effort to pull his own weight.

Something like a cannon hit the underside of the aqueduct where they'd been a minute ago. The bricks shuddered. Held. Someone screamed, thwarted rage and madness.

The Jäger looked at him in the dark and grinned. A faint glow fell from his mouth, haloing his breath.


	2. Chapter 2

The sky was beginning to light up with predawn when they stopped running.

Sorin had never been out of Vulkanburg's walls at night, never off the paved, patrolled roads even during the day. The pine woods were dark and full of hooting calls, whispery noises, the grating pings and thuds of a wild automated clank falling to rust and still roaming.

But it was fine, wasn't it, because he traveled with the biggest monster of all.

It was fine, wasn't it...

"Hoy."

Oh. Huh. Sorin was on the ground. Sorin was on his knees. It was all over pine needles under him. Almost soft. He looked up and the Jägermonster was staring down at him, head tilted a little like it was weird that after a night like this someone would need to... wouldn't...

"I'm stopping here," he informed him.

"Hokay! Hy carry hyu."

"Um, no thank you?" His voice broke. The Jäger paused briefly in the middle of leaning in. "I think, uh. If your shoulder and my tools interact anymore with my ribs, they'll break." Nope, still leaning in. "And -- and you're not --"

"Right den." Sorin was whisked up. "De princess carry for hyu."

Oh good lords of the abyss.

So many teeth. So close.

Sorin knew he'd been human, once, centuries ago -- he didn't quite look it anymore. He'd chosen this -- to become a monster, a pillager, a cheerful killing machine.

And his mouth _was_ glowing. It was faint, like some kinds of mushroom, not anything someone could have read by. It was _green_. Irradiated-green.

His mouth, and the inside of his nostrils, just a little. Sorin huddled as far away as he could, in case the Jäger sneezed out anything radioactive.

He thought about asking if it really didn't hurt, that he thought nothing of carrying a grown man with his back burned so badly. He thought of asking where the Jäger's pack was. If he was one of the wild ones, maybe. The feral ones, who'd refused to yield to the Baron's peace, who loved the carnage too much to...

... The Jägermonster's gliding jog rocked him into a daze. He let his eyelids slide closed.

\--

Sorin never did fall entirely asleep. He was exhausted enough that he could have, but the fear that something horrible would happen the second he stopped paying attention jerked him back from the brink every time he drifted that far.

Suddenly being dropped several feet to land in water made the point moot, at any rate.

"What was that for?!" he spluttered as he sat up, both hands raking wet curls off his face. The Jäger was dogpaddling at his side, hat askew.

"Whoops."

" _Whoops?_ "

The look on the monster's face was unexpectedly sheepish, scaly nose scrunched up. "Schlipped. Shot op."

"... Oh."

The one good thing he could say was that the river emerged from and ran past several volcanos. Even that far from its source it wasn't mountain-stream cold. He wouldn't have called it warm either, but not cold. He started trying to find his footing to stand back up; the Jäger grabbed his sleeve and tugged him back down.

"Ve float downschtream for a bit, jah? Dey gots to have hounds. Easy to break de trail dat way."

It was pretty much dawn now, the sun not yet visible because of the mountains but the sky turning a pinkish blue. Sorin chewed on his lip, even as he started paddling awkwardly after the Jäger.

"Won't they see us?"

A shrug. "Den I gots to fight. Got to rest mine legs sum, yes?"

Made sense.

In the morning light the Jäger's skin was a muted blue-green; he didn't seem that much bigger than Sorin. The 'towering over him' thing was probably mostly his legs.

His coat only held to the collar and sleeves by a few strips of cloth, the upper half of its back burned away. Underneath his back looked raw and bubbly, with pockmarks whose edges still bled whenever he moved and cracked the crust.

Sorin looked away. "I, um, don't know how to swim very well." Also, his satchel full of tools. He really didn't want to abandon them, but they might well sink him if his drenched clothes didn't manage it first.

"Dat's fine, Hy dun svim at all." He grabbed onto a fallen trunk, heaved it out of the muddy bank, and draped his arms on it.

"Oh."

Sorin paddled after him.

At least there was no way to go fast, so he didn't bother trying; he walked across the muddy bottom, tried to float as much as he could, tried to avoid getting tripped by branches and rocks, but it was almost restful. At least it was tiring in a different way.

"But if they track us to the river--"

The Jäger snorted. Sorin shut up.

"No, no. See, vat we haff here is a schmott gurl." He flicked Sorin a look over his shoulder, an eyeroll, half mocking and half fond. His eyes were dark. "Schmott vuns all tink so complicated dey trip demselves up all de time. Vat if dey cross de river, und then go _upstream_? Vat if dey make hyu _think_ dey cross, und go back? Ken't be dey chust float down. Too easy. Too _obvious_."

"... That's pretty devious of you."

The Jäger spluttered, gave him a mildly offended look. "No, dat's _lazy_."

... Yeah, Sorin was going to give up for a little bit there. Annoying his rescuer... he was still too tired for it. God, but he was sore.

It was a construct they'd yelled for, at first. It was _him_ they'd seen, not Sorin. If he hadn't moved, attracted their attention, would they have missed him?

Probably they would have canvassed the whole tunnel system and found him anyway.

\--

The sun was showing over the mountains. Eight AM, perhaps even nine, he couldn't tell exactly. He should have been at work two hours ago. Master Iliescu would be looking, asking around. Maybe he'd already sent one of the neighbor's kids ask his parents.

Who would then tell him they'd seen him go to bed, and never get out of it.

That or they were telling it to the Viscountess, which was a different flavor of distressing.

He tripped for the fifth time in as many minutes, ended up chin-deep in tepid water, shivered.

"... Herr Jäger? Sir?"

The Jäger twitched, and then lifted his nearest ear. Had he been dozing...?

"I'm, uh. I'm cold." And hungry, and exhausted, and he, well, at least he didn't need to piss, which was really the only good thing about being in the river. Urgh.

"Hy iz not a sir," the Jäger said, sounding half-asleep. Of course, he could afford that, with the branch, Sorin thought sourly; and then he felt a little guilty, remembering being carried. "Guess dey vill be looking soon. Might as vell den op somevhere und let dem pass by."

Might as well... then up? Damn up? The heavy Mechanicsburg accent confused Sorin for a minute until he realized the 'den' part actually did mean den.

The Jäger floated closer to the riverbank, rose up, fountaining everywhere. His back oozed and then started dripping red again, wounds reopening. Urk. Sorin dragged himself out of the water on hands and knees, got up on wobbly legs.

The pines had given ground to tall leafy trees; there were more bushes at ground level, some of them enthusiastically thorny, but he could deal with it if it meant more cover.

He stumbled after the Jäger, concentrating on not tripping on anything. The sunlight didn't get to the ground, and his drenched clothes felt even cooler now that he could feel the breeze.

It took them approximately three minutes to attract the bear with the robot limb.

Sorin prudently retreated to a big tree and placed his back against it, in case he was attacked from behind while the Jäger was busy.

It was... a little terrifying, to watch him fight in daylight, against a creature of mostly flesh and blood. He wasn't strong to the point he could lift the bear, or shrug off a slap of that huge paw -- and there went some more blood, and the lower half of his sleeve -- but he _was_ strong enough to grab its upper and lower jaws, and slowly wrench them apart.

There was a resounding crack of bone. The bear howled, snarled. The Jäger punched it in the throat.

After that it devolved into a slugfest. The bear got lucky with a swipe of its metal paw once and sent the Jäger rolling in the dead leaves, and then... stood there, making little choking, retching sounds.

The Jäger got back up, wobbled a little, and kicked it in the forehead.

Crack. It hit the ground like a felled tree.

"Woo!"

Sorin winced. "Don't yell! You're going to attract--"

" _OooooooOOOOooo--_ "

"... Wolves?"

Oh _damn_ it.

The Jäger bounced jauntily back to him, swept him off his feet in another princess carry, and took off at a run. He was laughing like a loon, all his teeth on display. His eyes and his mouth shone green strong enough to see the halo even in the forest's muted daylight.

A huge gray beast burst out of the bushes, and a second.

"Hold on!"

Sorin wrapped his arms around his shoulders, bounced around so hard his sore neck protested.

One of the wolves leapt, missed by two inches. The Jäger leapt up, sank his claws in, and started hauling them up with nothing but his arms.

A wolf jumped up after them. Sorin kicked out blindly, caught it in the jaw. Yipping, it fell back.

"--fff. Ow."

"Sorry!"

"Not hyu." The Jäger grinned down at Sorin, though it looked strained now. The muscles of his shoulders bulged under the strain. It wasn't like he had claws on his feet... hooves. Things. "Grab on vith hyu legs, sveethart, Hy step on hyu oddervise."

Sorin hauled himself up, tried to wrap his legs around him in the least bothersome way possible. It wasn't -- it was -- Good Lord, it was just a bit _intimate_?

On the other hand, wolves. Getting to be up in a tree sounded worth it.

A gravelly laugh in his ear. "Hyu really could hold on harder. Hy iz not like dem volves, Hy only bite if hyu ask nice."

Sorin growled, face flaming, and his fingers clenched over the burnt patches of skin on his shoulders.

" _I will take my tongs to your wounds_."

"Hoho. Rwoarr!"

"Shut up!"

"Never."

He had a pretty nice smile when it wasn't so huge it tumbled into terrifying. Sorin looked away. A trio of wolves milled around the foot of the tree, but another was already leaving, disappearing into the bushes. He hoped they'd find the bear carcass and get busy with it soon...

The Jäger bumped him with his _pectorals_. "You go furst."

Sorin fumbled with the tree and his blood-slick grip before he managed to plant a foot on the Jäger's thigh and push himself up. The tree twisted, forked, left a space to huddle in. The trunk was huge; the tree must be several centuries old -- it didn't mean a lot of space, but enough that once he got his ass settled in a hollow and his back pressed to a branch thicker than he was wide he didn't really fear falling.

Which was good because they were quite a way up.

The Jäger pulled himself in; his hoof slipped on the bark and he almost toppled into Sorin's lap, a hand shooting forward at the last second to brace against a branch by Sorin's head.

"--Whoa. Um."

His smile really was unreasonably charming, Sorin thought muzzily, especially for how toothy, how incandescent it was.

He leaned in and it was probably so he could pull his legs in and he would shift back in a second, he'd shift back, he'd --

His mouth was on Sorin's, insistent enough to push him back against the trunk. His other hand was on Sorin's jaw, lips parting hot and wet and, and Sorin matched him without thought, grunting quietly when the tip of the Jäger's tongue flicked against his own.

A low, rattling growl answered him; a weight settled on his thighs. He felt teeth, pointed, prickling at his lower lip, a hand smoothing down his shirt along his side, too-large hand squeezing his waist, his hip, slipping under his --

"No!"

He braced both hands against the Jägermonster's chest, wrenched free from the kiss. The trunk behind him was unyielding, the monster on top of him too strong, too heavy, there was nowhere to go.

"No, stop --"

Hands closed around his wrists, spreading them open; he strained with all the strength he'd gained from the forge, shifted him two inches, got nowhere else. No, no, _no_ \--

"-- _Hoy_. Keed."

Glowing eyes. Glowing lips, mostly on the inside where they were still damp from--

"Hy stopped. Breathe."

Oh, so that. That was what his face looked like when things weren't funny. Oh.

"Hy let go now. Hyu breathe."

He sat up straight, slowly opened his fingers. Sorin didn't yank them free the second he felt the slack, waited. Relief and fear mixed with shame, _I was wrong, he wasn't_...

"Um."

"It'z okay."

The Jäger shuffled back, found a branching fork of his own to wedge himself into. He moved slow, all telegraphed. His mouth pinched weird for a minute and then he did smile, mouth closed over his teeth; Sorin flinched.

"Sorry," the Jäger said. "Hy see hyu looking at me, und hyu schmell good like maybe hyu want to. Mine mistake--"

"No," Sorin interrupted, unable to even look at him anymore. "No, I -- I did. Look. I looked, I just, you startled me and I. I..."

And he was making excuses for hurting a man who'd been -- rough, okay, and cavalier -- and _friendly_ , even if he was extracting Sorin from that mess for his own benefit.

"I don't know why I assumed you'd just. Keep going if I said no. No, I know why but it's stupid, everyone says you guys are barely under control and--" cruel and, and _evil_ , "but you haven't been like that at all. Sorry." He took in a shuddering breath, released it as slow as possible. "...Sorry."

When he looked up the Jäger was smiling back, not the wide affair of before, but fangs showing again. Sorin blinked, cheeks heating up.

"Doz dat mean hyu wanna try again?"

" _No!_ "

"Aww. My heart, it iz in so many pieces."

The way his eyebrows waggled indicated he was thinking of something a fair sight lower than his heart. Sorin glared at him. Chuckling, the Jäger bowed from the waist, inclined his head.

His hat tumbled off into Sorin's lap. Sorin grabbed it before it could fall off the tree, handed it back, too flustered to meet his eyes.

"Thanks," the Jäger said. He took it back, put it back on. His hair was blue-green too, only much lighter than his skin, and less grayish. Strange. Not _bad_ , just--

"We, uh. Should probably do something about your back. You're bleeding kind of a lot. By which I mean how many liters of the stuff do you _have_ in there?"

The Jäger snorted. "Trade secret, keed. Hy dunno vhat's op, should be closed already."

Rather than unbutton anything, he yanked his shredded shirt and jacket over his head. He dropped the sodden mess in the fork of the biggest branches, and craned his neck to look.

Sorin looked, too, one second only before stopping himself, stomach twisting in shame at his -- curiosity.

"Huh. De hell iz even wrong."

Sorin took a bracing breath, told himself he was being entirely professional and not seductive or inappropriate at _all_ , and said "Let me look," shuffling cautiously closer. The Jäger arched an eyebrow at him like he was about to say something, but turned in his seat, draping a thigh across a rising branch in a way that pulled the cloth of his pants taut over thick muscle. Whoa, no wonder he jumped like a mountain goat -- oh good heavens. No. Bad. Stop.

Sorin leaned in, worked on ignoring the lines of his waist. His shoulders might have been equally distracting had they not been so badly blistered.

"Huh. Okay, the burned parts look... a bit smaller? But you've got pockmarks, and they keep cracking open when you move, I don't know wh -- oh sweet _lightning_."

"Hmm?"

Sorin slapped his shoulder for that mild, unconcerned tone. "You've got volcanic _stone_ in there!"

"Rocks?" He scratched his chin. "Hy dun fight with no rocks..."

"It's _lava_ , numb-for-brains! It burned you until it cooled and you've been, I bet you've been trying to heal over it, urgh, this is _gross_."

He couldn't even figure out how it hadn't burned him through. The black flecks were small, the biggest maybe the size of one of his nails, but the temperatures needed to get solid rock to _melt_ were unforgiving to anything even the slightest bit softer. It was a wonder he didn't have charred, fist-sized craters down to his ribcage instead.

Okay. It couldn't be much worse than the time Richter had dropped a mold full of molten iron down his boot.

Granted, they'd had to amputate.

But the fact was, he'd seen burns before. What bothered him here was mostly that the Jäger had been traveling while the flecks of lava cooled down and incidentally burned their slow way through his flesh, and the half-grown-over thing -- and the Jäger didn't look like it hurt him half as much as it ought.

"We don't have salve or clean cloth or anything, but if I... If I just get them out, you'll heal on your own, right?"

The Jäger stared at him over his shoulder for an unsettlingly long time, and then sighed, nodded. "Guess so. Fine, pull dem out."

Sorin opened his satchel, felt around for the smallest tongs he had. They weren't adapted for flesh, nothing as neat and precise as tweezers, but it was that or going digging with his nails, and his nails were gross with dirt and caked blood. He didn't care how unlikely it was that a construct of the Heterodynes would get infections like a common mortal, he wasn't risking it.

In the end he had to get a file, too, to prod and scratch some of the flecks upright enough that he could grab and yank them free.

Every extraction prompted a small spurt of blood, clotted with ash and bits of dead flesh. He sponged the Jäger's back with his own sleeve and kept going. The Jäger entertained himself commenting on what he could hear of the wolves and some kind of giant badger fighting over the bear's carcass.

"Think I'm done," Sorin said as he looked over his back again, nose only one inch away from his skin. There were some spots -- the craters he'd done first -- where he could already see new flesh burgeoning in the holes.

Funny that his flesh was a perfectly normal meaty pink, when his skin was greenish.

He glanced down the dip of his spine, just in case he'd missed anything, and.

He swallowed, looked away, wiped the tools he'd used on a cleanish corner of his sleeve and dumped them back in his satchel.

"Yeah. Done."

"So unfair, dat you can get hyu hands all over me, but hy ken't." The Jäger let out a totally unconvincing sniff. "Prodding me in der deepest holes--"

" _I will pull out all your teeth next, do not try me_."

The Jäger leered at him over his shoulder, long floppy ears flicking up. "Aw, darlink. Hy knew hyu cared."

Blushing hard, Sorin crossed his arms and looked away with a harrumph.

"By de way, mine name iz Velimir."

"--Oh." Oh. Right. They hadn't... done that yet. Sorin wet his lip, bit it a little. "Velimir?"

God, he'd just _said so_.

"I'm Sorin. Sorin Petrescu."

"Goot name." The Jäger -- Velimir, huh -- turned to sit with his side to Sorin, pressed the lower half of his back against the wood, cautious of his wounds for the first time Sorin had ever noticed. "Jäger dun use der family name much. But mine first name means Great Peace," he intoned, head hanging like it was a shameful secret.

Sorin spluttered, stared at him for confirmation -- this cheerful war machine on devil legs, this _Jäger_ \-- and then started to laugh.


	3. Chapter 3

Sorin dozed all morning in his undershirt, cradled in the tree's branches, sunlight falling on his face and his limbs. He'd taken off his boots, his vest, his shirt, spread them to get them to dry some in the breeze; it was almost like being in a tent, only the roof was dancing leaves.

It felt a bit like a dream. Which was alright, because the last night had felt a bit like a nightmare.

Velimir left at some point, came back with a pocket full of berries and a live frog. Sorin let him have the frog.

"Hyu sure?"

The frog struggled fruitlessly to escape. It was bright, a pretty red and yellow. "Unless you find a way to cook it while up in a tree, yeah, but thanks."

Thirst was more of a problem, but he tried to make do with berry juice. He didn't want to go down to the river until they were ready to leave. Fair bet they'd end up meeting with a, a feral _clank_ or a rogue spark or a bunch of pirates either way; better not to have to do it twice.

"How long are we staying here?"

The Jäger checked the sun, scratched at his chin. Hair was starting to grow there, just as light a blue-green as the hair on his head, lighter than his skin. "Hy vos thinking mebbe later in de afternoon. Or night, even, but by den dey might haff dirigibles out even vith how that make the Baron's people all curious."

"Mm." Sorin looked him over quickly for an insignia he might be wearing, forced his eyes away. The Jäger hadn't bothered to put his ruined clothes back on yet. His chest was -- well, he was hardly going to bother wearing an insignia on _bare skin_. Sorin really needed to stop accidentally finding himself looking. "You'll be healed?"

A flash of a grin. "Oh, yez. I'll be fine."

"You're -- one of the Baron's, yes? That's... Is that where we're going?"

A frown passed on the Jäger's face, went away. He shrugged and crunched through the frog, which kicked frantically for a second before going limp. Urgh.

"Hy vork fur der Baron, yez. He needs to know vhat hyu lady spark is plotting, Hy think."

Sorin winced. "Um. Probably, yeah. There were a _lot_ of those stone clanks down in the caves. Like... probably more than she'd need to police the town. Even _one_ of those would be a lot to police the town!"

"Pff." The Jäger scuffed his hoof against the trunk, frowning faintly under the brim of his hat. "If dat iz der only thing she iz still fine. Schmott pipple need de toys und fancy weapons. Der problem iz more dat when ve finds out, she vants to kill us. If it vas just a spark invention ting, she'd be fine telling der Baron about it so he ken buy it off her, yah?"

"Mm." Yeah. That hadn't been the reaction of someone who was in any way okay with the news coming out.

By now she knew his name and his family and his job already. He shied away from thinking of how hard it would be to get back to them.

"Where are we going? I mean -- which town?" He bit his lip a little. Local rulers might well side with the Viscountess and hand the two of them right back to her, discreetly.

Frog long since gone, the Jäger looked ready to fall asleep again, hands behind his head and wide-brimmed, dark blue hat tilted down on his face. (The way it made the muscle of his chest -- nrgh. No. Sorin looked away, ashamed.)

"Dunno. Furst vun Hy see de Baron's troop in. Mebbe anodder Jäger pack."

"--Oh, that's right. Where's yours? I thought you guys didn't really travel alone --"

He fell silent suddenly. The Jäger had lifted up his hat, just a little bit, to stare at him with a single, glowing eye.

It wasn't a friendly look. Not an 'appreciative of your fine face' look either, not at all.

"Somevhere" was all Velimir said before tilting the hat back down. Sorin didn't try to keep the conversation going.

His stomach growled quietly; berries weren't going to cut it. He shifted his weight as discreetly as he could, tried to find a good position without reminding the Jäger he existed too much.

Good things to think about, those. Hunger. Soreness. His legs and back were for once hurting more than his arms (not that his arms still hurt much after a day at the forge, not any longer.) He had a nice bruise on his forehead from impacting with the aqueduct the previous evening. Skinned knuckles, he wasn't sure from where. A slightly strained wrist...

... Oh, right. He dug around in his satchel, pulled out his heavy work gloves. He'd been a bit too panicked to think to put them on and protect his hands yesterday, but... Urgh, the inside was damp. Damn, and it was good leather, too. He was hardly going to find any oil to put on them before they got all cracked. He turned them inside out, put them on a branch in a patch of sun, fussed with the positioning to be sure a gust of wind wouldn't knock them out of the tree.

He wanted to be home. Right now he'd be at the forge with Master Iliescu and they'd be breaking for lunch, sitting together on the bench in the little courtyard, enjoying the cooler air. It didn't feel good to feel the breeze right now when he was damp and underdressed. He'd live, but.

He wanted to be home, not in deathly danger, not to have caught the Mistress of Vulkanburg at anything that made him lose trust in her ruling hand, not to have gotten run out of home, not to have seen Rozalia --

"Hyu think any harder, hyu brain iz fit to explode."

The Jäger was scratching his bare stomach with a negligent, clawed, too-big hand.

Sorin tore his eyes away from the flat expanse of his belly, the still-strange trail of lighter-colored pubic hair on that blue-green skin. "Well, sorry, I can't turn it off at will to take a convenient nap!"

"I ken turn it off for hyu."

Sorin recoiled, glaring. "I don't need to be knocked out! My skull is not that tough, okay? I got hit there already, once is enough."

Velimir lifted the brim of his hat enough to show both eyes blinking long and lazy. "Hy vos thinking more of _kissink_ , but hey, honest mistake."

... Yeah, so, Sorin was blushing again, and it was only half because he felt flustered. Had he managed to insult him again? Wincing, he peered at him, trying to guess. The Jäger sat up, nudged his hat back so that it perched at a precarious-looking angle, legs crossed at the... was that an ankle? Sorin was going to call it an ankle.

"It ken be kissing or it ken be _ameliorated_ kissing, like with de hands going places and everyting."

Okay. Not insulted. Or more horny than insulted, at any rate. Sorin spluttered. "I can't kiss you!"

"Vhy? Hyu mouth works fine. Und hyu already know Hy don't bite."

He was leaning in. Still sitting in the same spot but the tree was not that big and he was looming over Sorin's boot-less ankle, hand hovering like he was planning to touch it.

Which was admittedly pretty tame, it was just --

"I have to get married."

The Jäger blinked, tilted his head, the hat wobbling dangerously. "Usually it's der gurls vith mean poppas who get told dey gots to be virgins or else. Hyu mean hyu got a gurl already?"

"No! Uh. Not really, but--" Argh! Velimir's lips were pinched and his eyelids heavy like he was contemplating his sense and sanity and finding them lacking, which from a Jäger was particularly irritating.

"So it's not that hyu dun _want_ to." He arched his eyebrows, still staring, a clear 'yeah, I _thought_ so.'

... Urgh. Now Sorin's face was scarlet. He glared at him, as much as he could. The man be damned for being so right.

"I'll have to get married at _some_ point. How am I meant to do that if I know -- I mean -- marriage is for children and family, and when I'm past being an apprentice then I can't keep living with my parents, and if you _don't_ get married then it's -- it's pretty lonely and. It's _weird_ if you don't. And I like girls fine as partners and friends and everything but how am I meant to be happy like that if I know -- if..."

He couldn't finish. His throat had knotted up and it ached.

"Am I meant to _cheat_?"

Velimir blinked at him blankly for a minute, looking baffled. "Whaddya -- oh."

And then he _grinned_.

"Jah, Hy get hyu, Jäger is a tough act to follow! Effry act of luv after that, so boring, so _bland_ \--"

"If you finish I'm going to hit you in the face."

"Oh-ho!"

"With my _tools_."

Velimir's grin widened so much Sorin wondered briefly how the top of his head didn't just fall off.

"Get a sveetie who likes de gurls, und good friends who do de same, und you ken swap under de cover ov de night. It all vork out!"

"Sweet lightning, you are _perverted_."

Velimir was still grinning fatuously. "He still iz not Jägerkin, but mebbe good enough to haff _some_ fun, eh? A little fun. Mine fun vould be bigger, but too much of a good thing--"

Sorin briefly contemplated jumping off the tree, head first. He gave the Jäger a jaundiced look, head in his hands and elbows on his knees, curled up half because the discussion was so bad it was painful and half because the man was putting ideas in his head, and they were sadly enough not staying up there. Traitorous body. "You're trying to get me to kiss you to shut you up, aren't you?"

"Is it vorking?"

Yes. "No."

Velimir deflated, long ears flopping down sadly. "De sacred technique passed down by mine elders! Foiled. Hy vill haff to tell Heiderich. De stain on his honor..."

Sorin gave up holding back his laughter. "You're impossible."

"Nah, chust unlikely. Der Masters ken do a lot ov that."

"By which I mean, you'd better kiss me before I change my mind. Keeping on talking would probably do it."

The Jäger had been leaning in a little bit already, but suddenly he was in Sorin's space, hovering over him, forehead so close Sorin could feel the brim of the thrice-damned hat. His hands were planted on both sides of his thighs and the look on his face --

He'd been pretending, earlier. Playing harmless, playing silly.

That look was a hunting one through and through. Measuring. _Hungry_.

"Um."

"Say no. I stop."

He'd dropped most of the accent, so it didn't deform his words so much. It didn't make his voice any less ... oh.

"Okay," Sorin whispered. "Um. No -- no groping though? Just--"

"Okay."

A quick flick of a reassuring smile, and he leaned the rest of the way in.

He was a bit slower this time -- perhaps wary of spooking Sorin again -- but it didn't make it any less intense. Sorin could feel his body heat through the space between them, was immensely aware of its closeness, of how little it would take for that body to surge against him. (Of how much he wished it would.)

Sorin kissed back, lips parting without thought. He raised a hand, hesitated, then he thought that a Jäger wasn't going to appreciate hesitation and restraint, and slipped it around the back of Velimir's neck. The Jäger shuddered, _growled_.

He mumbled against his mouth, "Is that not--"

" _Squeeze_."

Sorin had pretty strong hands. Came from working with hammers and big bars of heated metal that couldn't be allowed to skitter off. By the time the Jäger's purr had softened, gone from hungry to satisfied, his fingers were starting to ache.

"Thought we weren't groping," he said half-teasingly, and kissed Velimir again.

Velimir snorted against his mouth, nipped his upper lip. "Hy can't. _Hyu_ can."

Sorin smiled a little despite himself. "Pff." He tightened his grip, relaxed and shifted it, squeezed again. He didn't need to be touching Velimir to feel the shiver running down his spine.

"Hff -- nize hands. Bet hyu giff _awesome_ massages."

"I'd break my fingers on you," Sorin countered, and tugged him a little closer to deepen the kiss. He slipped his arm around his neck, touched his hair cautiously. It felt... pretty much like normal hair.

It was crazy the number of stupid random thoughts that could come into his mind while he was busy melting under a superior -- if really strange -- specimen of manhood.

"You'd better not be radioactive."

"Mm?"

"Your nostrils are glowy too."

Velimir sputtered right against him and burst out laughing. (Sorin bit his lip so he wouldn't follow him and discreetly wiped some spittle off his face.)

Then the Jäger stuck out his tongue. In the shade of the hat it glowed too.

"All mine muco... wet fleshy parts do that." He leaned back a few inches so he could smile down at Sorin. Sorin smiled back helplessly. "Hy ken stop, but Hy need to think about it, so if Hy dun glow at least a _leetle_ bit, hyu are doing de sexy thing wrong."

"And it's not radioactive?"

"It's not radioactive. Hy'm like sum entirely non-radioactive und _delicious_ glow-mushroom thing."

"Oh, good." He stared at Velimir, wondering what to do now. The Jäger was still hovering over Sorin, but the mood was a bit... Well he wouldn't mind keeping on kissing, he just didn't -- did Velimir still want to?

"Hy do haff de one mushroom," Velimir purred. Sorin planted a hand on his face and shoved him off.

"Congratulations, you've cured me of being an invert," he groaned.

Chuckling, the Jäger dived back in to steal a peck, and found himself a precarious perch to lounge on his side beside him. He was draped across several thin branches, with large gaps between them, and Sorin foresaw an accident.

"Giff me a half-hour vit mine hands und hyu nethers und Hy can invert hyu again."

Sorin huffed, biting the inside of his cheek quite vigorously. "I'm not interested in moldy crotches," he said with as much dignity as he could and a quick glance stolen at the line of pale green curls climbing to the Jäger's bellybutton, "but thank you."

"Hoy!" Velimir made a kicked puppy face, ears drooping limply. "It's almost entirely mine hair und hardly any mold at all."

Groaning and laughing together, Sorin looked up at the uncaring heavens, made a pleading motion with his hands. "I give up."

"Score!"

"I give up on ever kissing you again, before you give me pond scum."

"Oops. That might be too late."

"... Would it hurt you if I shoved you off the tree?"

Velimir's smile was bright like the sun. "Hyu ken try. Hy might even not drag hyu along vith me."

\--

They were in the tree until the middle of the afternoon, and then suddenly following an internal timer that Sorin did not understand Velimir was making him gather his things and shrugging his shredded shirt and uniform jacket back on. They wouldn't be much protection for his back, Sorin thought to himself as he buttoned up his own vest. Then again, at least they would give him long sleeves, and retain _some_ warmth. Too bad Sorin had no needle and thread in his satchel, and even worse that there wasn't enough cloth left to sew the holes closed regardless.

"Is your back--"

The Jäger clicked his tongue, scanning the ground around the tree. "Mine back iz fine. Quick quick."

Sorin frowned as he stuffed his still-damp gloves back in his satchel -- and then, thinking better of it, pulled them out and put them on. The leather scraped against the scabs on his hands, but it was better than no protection at all.

"If the enemy is approaching you should tell me."

Velimir stared at him, arched a pale eyebrow. "So hyu vill run without looking und fall or get caught?" He sighed through his nose, waved Sorin down. Sorin closed his mouth and glared instead of replying something blistering. "De enemy is not approaching. De enemy just passed uz. We follow, quiet-like, yes? Dey vill not look where they _just_ looked."

"Huh! That's smart--"

"Hsst, bite hyu tongue!"

"--but risky." Sorin blinked. "Um?"

"Hy iz not _schmott_! Iz not mine bizness to be schmott. Iz chust sum old trick Hy learn from sum old-timer."

Velimir's accent had thickened so much Sorin had a bit of a hard time understanding him for the first second. He was scowling, too, and maybe even pouting a little. His lips had gone extra-glowy.

"I just mean, it's pretty dangerous--"

A wild, toothy grin. "Und if Hy haff to whittle down der enemy, oh vell. Beink at de back iz useful like dot. Ach! No more talk. Horry op now."

Sorin laced up his boots, nodded. "I'm ready _yyyohmygod_."

That utter jerk had just swung him over his shoulder, and then _right out off the tree_. It was a miracle Sorin didn't yell, though he did start to hyperventilate a little when the ground started swinging under them and the Jäger dropped down to another branch.

They were on the ground in under a minute, and then he was leading the way at a long, easy lope that Sorin had to jog fast to follow. His tools clanged a bit in his satchel until he thought to stuff his wadded-up handkerchief in between them, and when he looked up Velimir was almost gone from sight between the trees. Sorin's heart kicked up and he went racing after him. That jerk. That complete, utter _jerk_.

It was a good thing he was nice to look at.

(Apart from the thing where Sorin did _not_ need the temptation, but in the short term it was probably better than having no distraction.)

\--

They followed the search party at a cautious distance for the rest of the afternoon. Sorin felt queasy with tension, hyperaware of every snapped branch, every whisper of voices brought by a gust of wind through the leaves. Usually they stayed at the edge of Velimir's senses, and Sorin had to make do with nothing but pure trust and his own frayed nerves, but sometimes the search party would encounter a knot of predators or an old trap and be delayed, and they'd accidentally catch up a bit.

Velimir didn't look impatient, or eager to go and fight. He looked calm, a little interested, like someone taking a walk in a pretty garden. It made Sorin resent him a little, but then again he _was_ a Heterodyne construct made expressly to wage war, one who'd _asked_ to become a Heterodyne construct made to wage war, he wasn't going to react normally to these things.

It made him feel weird -- reassured, but uneasy too. The monster was on his side.

It was still a monster.

Not quite as monstrous as the huge badger with goggles and a robotized maw who burst out of his hidey-hole pretty much under Sorin's feet, though. Sorin's yelp was cut short by horror that he'd attract attention, and the next second Velimir had whirled around and landed on the thing's back; Sorin threw himself into the bushes to get out of the way as the Jäger clawed himself a way to its throat.

It was noisy as it died, kicking and shredding the earth with massive, serrated claws, shrieking in outrage.

It hadn't even finished thrashing in its death throes before Velimir was yanking him out of the thorns by the upper arm and dragging him along -- straight for the river.

Something crashed in the bushes in the direction of the search party, someone yelled, "Over there!", and Sorin put everything he had into his legs, trying to follow the Jäger. Why hadn't Velimir picked him up to run ahead, they'd be in the water by now --

They burst out of the bushes onto the riverbank. Velimir shoved him to the side. "Up a tree. Go."

Stumbling, Sorin went. There were no trees in Vulkanburg save small, frail pear trees, ferociously defended from the children. He might not have thought he could climb if he hadn't had terror pushing him and refusing him the time to worry about it.

He could hear yells behind him, crashing noises, the discharge of some kind of energy weapon. He turned to look as soon as he could, a dozen feet over the ground.

Three spider clanks ridden by the Viscountess' guards, check. Three stone clanks with the lava cannons, check. One of the spider clanks was already melted through by the cannon Velimir had stolen off a stone clank.

The spider's riders were... he couldn't see very well. There were leaves in the way.

It was a brutal fight. The rocks and roots slowed the stone clanks down; they were heavy, awkward. The spiders were more of an immediate concern.

Velimir obviously agreed, because the first thing he did after dumping the lava cannon was to jump on top of one and --

\-- oh god.

Sorin knew if they were caught the people hunting them weren't going to give them a spanking and ground them. He also knew Jäger were killers.

The unthinking ease with which the Jägermonster broke the driver's neck, thrust his hand through the gunner's chest--

That hand had cupped Sorin's hip, careful, gentle, touched his face, reassuring. It burst out from under the man's ribs coated in wet red, disappeared again with a brutal yank.

Two spiders down. The stone clanks waved their cannons awkwardly, like they'd been programmed not to aim at those and didn't know what to do.

The rattle of a gun startled him into taking cover behind the trunk. Leaves flew -- nowhere near him, the first time, and then so close bark rained on his head. Someone was yelling --

Someone was silent.

Three stone clanks left. He swallowed bile and told himself he could peek out again now, there was no one to shower him with bullets anymore.

He was just in time to see one of the stone clanks' cannons gush out a thick stream of lava across several trees, his included. The heat was like a slap to the face. The bark caught fire a whole foot over the places where the lava had touched, where it was still gouging itself a way in. Sorin felt the tree sway, and jumped without a thought for the height into the nearest bushes, scrambled frenetically to get away from the falling trunk.

The bushes were on fire. There was a black furrow in the earth, rocks melting. The smoke was thick and dark, everything too green and wet to burn clean.

He went around, toward the river -- he wanted the water near by if he needed to put himself out -- hunched over, trying to be discreet. If one of the clanks came after him...

Velimir was still fighting. Sorin, a bit late, realized with a brief bout of nausea that he might well have been lying there burned to death under the spray. Either the clank couldn't aim or he'd dodged.

Two of the stone clanks were on the ground, one of them ... was it missing its head? The other one had broken limbs and was fruitlessly trying to get back up.

The third one ran right past Sorin's hiding place charging at Velimir, who stood trapped by the flank of a fallen spider and the river.

Only not so trapped, because at the last second he lifted the long point of a spider clank's leg, braced it against the spider, and let the clank impale itself on it. The impact was thunderous, metal screeching, crumpling. Sorin moved closer -- he couldn't see a thing, only the stone clank standing right next to the metal; was there any space left for a flesh body in between -- oh.

Velimir had fallen into a low crouch underneath, was thoroughly un-crushed.

He braced against the metal wall, planted a hoof in the stone clank's crotch, and _heaved_.

The clank stumbled back like it had gone boneless, stupid.

Something red and fire splashed out, splashed the Jäger's sleeve, the ground, which smoked, started to burn, and Velimir swore and started pushing the leaking clank toward the river to put it out--

" _No!_ "

Sorin burst out of the bushes, ran teeth gritted at the idiot Jäger who stood there staring at him.

He thought Velimir wasn't expecting some nervous little townie to ram him with a shoulder and knock him straight into the river. The stone clank wavered for another few seconds, allowing him to hurry out of range, and fell, thankfully short of the water. Sorin stepped farther back, legs shaking with nerves, feeling the dry heat of the leak on his face.

"Wot vas _that_ for?!"

"You ever breathe in superheated steam, dumbass?! Do you _want_ scalded lungs?! Do you want to be _blind?!_ " Sorin took in a deep, shuddering, furious breath. The lava was still crawling toward the water, though it had started to darken. "Get a rock, scrape as much of it as you can off your wound --" he swallowed thickly, trying not to imagine the wound such a splash would leave, when a small splatter had left holes in his back. "You don't get infections, do you?"

Velimir gave him a slow, eyebrows-arched blink. "No."

"Good." The water was too dirty for burn wounds. Better than nothing. He turned away to check on the fire; they still had a few avenues of escape, and he didn't think the fire would go far, the trees were too green in this season...

He hoped, at least, he -- god, what if they burned down the forest, what if that was the only way to cover their escape (so selfish, all those animals, the hunters who depended on them, the precious wood--), what if it killed them.

Behind him the water moved, hooves stepped on the rocks. He didn't turn around.

"How bad is it?"

"Hy'll heal."

So, pretty bad. Fuck. _Fuck_.

"Mebbe not today, though."

Now he was even admitting it. Sorin glanced at him, saw the casual (not) way his too-large hand clenched on the drenched, blackened mess of his other forearm.

"We need to pick out the cloth and stone debris," Sorin managed to push out past dry lips. God, he was so done, he wanted to be done.

"Not here. Come on, keed."

Velimir went to one of the fallen spider clanks, peered -- at the corpses?

"What are you _doing_."

"Looking fur food. Warm clothes. A knife for hyu, mebbe."

"I've got it," Sorin said (he didn't want to get it) and pushed past him, pulled himself up into the open cockpit. The bodies were still dripping. He checked them for (nausea rose) personal weapons, food, things.

He found a bag with rations, a little string purse with some money in it. No weapon. Maybe in the next clank...

"Let's go. It'll attract attention soon enough."

"... Yeh, hokay."

They started walking. Sorin pretended he couldn't see Velimir keeping his arm folded against his chest, fingers limp.

About ten minutes later Velimir asked, casual as you please, "by de way, hyu okay?"

Sorin breathed in through his nose, ignored him. The Jäger peered at him.

"Hoy, sveethart--"

" _Of fucking course I'm not okay!_ " he snarled, whirling around on the spot, a hand clenching on the strap of his satchel. The bag thudded against his bruised ribs; he didn't even care. " _I'm going to die in these thrice-cursed woods and my family will never even know what happened!_ "

The Jäger stopped walking, stared. Sorin threw a hand up in frustrated rage. He had the brief desire to punch him, but then he thought of the wound, and how that wouldn't be right. (A second later he thought that even injured a Jägermonster could probably lay him flat in a hot second, if he dared.)

"I bet no one ever bothers to tell them if I died, or if I just decided to abandon them one night for no reason, and meanwhile my bones will be rotting here! I bet my parents will cry, and my sister won't because she needs to be strong for them, and she'll never cry, and--"

And. He wanted to go home.

He couldn't.

"Ah, cripes." He turned away, hurrying to wipe his eyes before anything incriminating could overflow. He missed, or maybe he was still crying and couldn't stop.

"Hokay, hyu need to schtopp dat real fast-like," the Jäger told him, and he tensed all over again until he realized the words had sounded less irritated or dismissive than panicky. "Vhen someting is bad Hy drink or Hy get laid, but--"

Sorin rubbed his eyes dry on his glove, sighed through his nose. Urgh, he was already snotting up. "I'm not asking you to do anything about it. You've done enough already."

"Ho, good." A pause. "...Vas it good?"

He breathed out, felt around his satchel for the handkerchief to blow his nose. He was tempted to say something uncharitable. His life had been so _normal_ before the Jäger.

It wouldn't be true, though. He'd gone spying on the Mistress well before Velimir even showed up, with absolutely no outside pressure. "Yeah," he said, voice rough, back still turned. "You did save my life. Several times. I just wish you didn't _have_ to."

"Vell, Hy dun mind rescuing a cutie like hyu," Velimir said, forcibly cheerful. "Comes with der nice perks--"

Sorin met his eyes then, stared wordlessly.

"... Hokay, Hy schtopp."

"Mnh."

He started walking again. After a second, Velimir fell into step with him. Neither one of them talked for a little while.

"How far vould hyu say to de next town?" Velimir asked, a little quiet, serious for once.

"Uh -- I don't know for sure, usually we don't go on foot..."

"Giff me an approximate. Hy know dere is one down this river, but Hy'm not a local boy. Ve vas stationed on der other side ov Vulkanburg."

Chewing thoughtfully on his lip, Sorin tried to figure out an estimate. They'd walked pretty fast... On the other hand they'd gone through the woods and all their little valleys and hills, not on the nice, mostly flat, paved road, and the river didn't really flow straight.

"There's Schwarzburg, but it'll be at least six hours away. Maybe even ten. Otherwise it's just a few small villages lost in the mountains, and we won't find them if we're not on the road to see where it branches out."

He hesitated. He kind of didn't really want to think about the future, when it was a lot of fretting and zero actual solutions. If Velimir had ideas, though...

"What did you have planned? I don't think they have a garrison..."

"Jah, they don't." A careless shrug -- and then a subtle twitch, when the burnt arm was jostled. "Not ov de Baron, at least. But good local militia, though dey won't help Jägerkin vithout de Baron's seal. Too much of de trouble und most ov it not in their weight class. But dey _vill_ defend civilians, und it'll be too much trouble vhen it gets reported if your madgirl attacks dem anyvays."

Sorin blinked. "Uh. Okay?"

Velimir inclined his head, quirked him a small, close-mouthed smile. "If hyu hide dere und find new clothes, new job, und Hy keep going und making a mess, she follow me. Then hyu can get a job dere, or join a caravan fur somevhere else, belike."

Sorin's stomach tightened with a brief burst of anxiety. Velimir could be terrifying, but being alone... "--Oh. But how will you find me again, I mean, if I leave for another town--"

"Hy von't," he replied simply. "Hyu tell me vhat huy see, und Hy tell der Baron. Later hyu hear de story when de Mistress falls from power und hyu know hyu ken go home."

"...Oh."

"Mebbe a week, mebbe three month. Mebbe a year, even, but Hy vill be surprised. Der Baron dun like de long sieges, thinks dey'z boring."

"Oh."

He kept walking through a tall patch of grass, eyes on the ground. He could just... stop at the next town. Just get there, and then it'd be over -- well, he would still have to hide, to lay low, he wouldn't get to be home by tomorrow, but...

End the chase, the constant terror, the raw nerves. Sleep somewhere safe. Eat something warm, even. He had some money from the dead men, and he still had his tools and might find a few jobs here and there... Without a letter of introduction from master Iliescu it would be hard to find a solid position, but if it was just supposed to last for a few weeks...

He thought fleetingly about the possibility that Velimir just wanted the intel, and would then abandon him in the forest and speed ahead. He did have a mission to accomplish, and no real reason to give a damn, save that he hadn't tumbled Sorin yet.

It didn't even sound likely. The horrible flirting was mostly insincere, he was sure, but there had been flashes of actual niceness, actual care, enough of them that he didn't...

Why would he bother to clown around to put Sorin at ease, when Sorin might push himself harder on the road if he was more scared of him?

"We should clean out your wound," he said, which was blatant avoidance but Velimir let it stand, let him lead the way down a slope to a small rock to sit on, beside a tiny creek that snaked its way to the river.

He took off his gloves, stashed them away, washed his hands and his file and his smallest tongs in the water. He didn't watch as Velimir tore the sleeve off his jacket, and then off his shirt.

"Hyu iz not de type to faint, are hyu?" Velimir mused, peering at his wound. Sorin closed his eyes tight and braced for extreme grossness.

"Let me guess, rock imbedded everywhere in it?"

"Und cloth. Und lots of charred things." A thoughtful pause. "Und Hy think Hy see a bit ov bone..."

"Smashing."

"Haha, Hy did smash 'em preddy gud, huh."

Sighing and forewarned, Sorin went about cleaning the horrorshow.

The wound was horrific. The cooled lava was the least of it. Charred black to the bone in a couple of places, Sorin wound up scraping carbonized flesh out until he uncovered meat that still bled.

One fleck of rock had fused to the bone -- or imbedded itself in it -- and he could not get it out no matter how hard he made himself pull with his tongs. He would have broken a normal person's arm long ago, yanking that hard, but the Jäger just sighed and told him to leave it, that he knew a dozen of his friends who were going around still wearing the bullets people had tried to kill them with and he didn't see why stone would be any more of an issue.

"Didn't a doctor try to get them out?" Sorin asked, frowning in concentration as he used Velimir's boot knife to cut out -- urgh -- a bit of cloth that had already been healed over and through.

"... No." A shrug, jarring the arm. Sorin tssked. "Not worth der trouble."

"Pff." It helped that Velimir didn't react when he cut into him; he could manage to work on it like he would a chunk of mutton for dinner. Every time he remembered it was a living person he was turning to lace... It was a good thing he had no interest in becoming a surgeon, because the mild but persistent nausea would have disqualified him. "What's worth the trouble, losing a hand? Your head?"

"Ho! Dat's a goot question. Depends on der head."

He wagged his eyebrows. Sorin briefly considered poking him in the wound, and then -- peered, under the shade of his hat, found his eyes tight at the corners, faintly strained.

"--You do feel the pain, don't you."

Another shrug. "Iz good. Mean de flesh still lives. It can heal. No pain fur a Jäger is not smart. Ve is stupid about fighting already. Master Carmine said--"

Sorin waited, but the story didn't seem to be forthcoming. "Yeah?"

"...Nah. Hy iz not Jägerkin yet vhen he goz up against der Unseen Empire. Dey haff lava cannons too. Hy alvays vant to shoot vun. Happy times!"

His accent had thickened again. He smiled down at Sorin, and tried to flex his arm. Sorin slapped his knee and told him to stay put.

The disjointed bits of story made him feel a bit strange. It was like Velimir wanted to talk about things, but he -- well. They weren't really friends, were they. Sorin was just a civilian he'd picked up on the way.

He probably missed his pack. Or was in more pain than he let on. Or both.

"The cave under the town was at least two miles across," he said abruptly, and turned on his heel to wash the shirt sleeve in the river. "Probably more, I couldn't see. I saw... six, seven squads of stone clanks. Ten to a squad, I think. And when Rozalia came in she had a letter that confirmed some kind of weapon had had effects that were felt in _Plovdiv_. The Viscountess sounded really happy about that. She went all sparky... you know. Bwahaha, my reign of terror approaches."

He twisted water out of the mangled sleeve, went back to the Jäger's arm, started cleaning the wound. Blood flowed more freely now. He twisted blood out into the river, rinsed the cloth, made another pass for debris or dust or anything that should be cleaned out.

"Plovdiv, huh," Velimir mused. "Dat _is_ a big weapon. Verra unsporting. Bah."

Sorin nodded over the arm he was now bandaging. "I don't know what the hell she's thinking."

He tied a knot as well as he could -- it wouldn't be sterile, but they had nothing to disinfect with anyway, he mostly wanted to keep new dirt out of the wound.

When he finished washing his hands and looked up from his crouch he found Velimir staring at him, head a little tilted. The shade of his hat made his eyes hard to read.

"... Yes?"

"She iz not hyu mistress, iz she."

Sorin frowned, confused. "Wha -- the Viscountess? She _is_ the protector of Vulkanburg--"

"No, Hy mean she iz not _hyurs_." A thoughtful pause. "Hyu is not hers. Hyu just live there."

"I guess so," Sorin admitted after a moment's thought. "It's not like we ever see her around and most of her policies are kind of... They happen, it's like the weather, there's no discussion possible, but she's not _unreasonable_ most of the time, so I have no reason to think much about her."

Velimir got back up, tried to flex his hand; Sorin scowled at him and tried to figure out how to use the abandoned jacket sleeve to make a sling. In the end he had to slit it in two lengthwise and knot the two bits together.

"Aw, too bad. Dere's good job security in minioning," Velimir said, falsely serious. "Until someting explodes, but in de meantime hyu iz verra happy."

"Urgh." He almost put the sling around the Jäger's neck himself, then paused to consider the hat, then realized with some embarrassment that personal space was still a thing that existed and Velimir still had one good arm perfectly up to the task. "Here, you should put that on. And I can't even really imagine myself so _gone_ on someone that I need to follow them around and -- "

Um. Yes. Heterodyne construct here. Loyalty had probably been engineered in; when it wasn't there it often was because the attempt had failed, not because it hadn't been made at all.

"Pff." Velimir draped the sling over his shoulder and caught the other end, tried to use his injured hand to make a knot. Sorin stepped back in.

"Short enough?"

"Yeah. Good. Maybe hyu has not met _the one_ ," he added, teasing.

He was standing very close. His smile was, as Sorin was -- not fast enough -- getting used to, stuck on flirtatious. Ears heating up, Sorin made sure to pay attention to the knot, to make it solid as possible. "Nah, I really don't think the minion thing is for me. I mean, I can imagine admiring and respecting people but not to the point that I'm going to stop leading my own life to follow them around. Um... Does that offend you, or...?"

"Nah." Velimir settled his arm in the sling, only a little bit cautious, tugging on the cloth to spread out the supported area. Sorin stepped out of his space. "Ve iz following der Masters becauz they leed us vhere ve vant to go in de first place." A pause. "Then again...Ve did vant to go where they go but vas it them who gave us the want first, hy ken't tell."

They blinked at each other for a second.

"Eh. Doesn't matter. Iz fun. So vhat vere you doing in der tunnels then?"

Sorin spluttered. "What?"

"Hyu vas _not_ minioning. So?"

Oh, blast it. "Does it even matter?" he said, looking away for anything he might have forgotten to pick up and put away. "I was just conveniently around to see something weird and I went to check it out. it was more than I bargained for. The end."

The Jäger leaned in to peer at him, the brim of his hat brushing Sorin's wild curls. "Hmmm. Hokay! Hy sure know from falling into weird thingz all accidental-like. All vit de oops und all."

Sorin groaned. "Shouldn't we get going? Before another search party finds us?"

"Shore ting." He waggled his eyebrows. "Naughty boy, out after hyu bedtime, und not effen fur hyu spark."

"Your accent thickens when you're being a jerk, do you know that?"

Toothy grin, eyes positively sparkling. "Ho yez. Iz nize hyu noteeced."

Sorin glared weakly and then let his shoulders slump. "Oh, good," he said. "Glad you're aware -- _whoa!_ "

Suddenly he was being slung over the Jäger's shoulder. What. No. What.

"Ve run!" Velimir said cheerily, and bounced straight across the stream.

It took Sorin ten minutes of squirming and complaining about his ribs before Velimir would consent to stop long enough for Sorin to climb on his back instead. Sorin didn't even attempt to convince him to let him walk.


	4. Chapter 4

The inn's cheapest room wasn't any better than its price suggested -- narrow bed, very little space around, and under the roof to boot, so that he had to walk a bit stooped or risk banging his head again. It didn't matter, since he would be using this room for sleep and not much more, and it wasn't like he had to share it with anyone.

Much less a Jäger on goat-like stilts.

He dropped his satchel on the wobbly desk wedged under the skylight, sat on the bed. He was glad when it groaned; it was too quiet in here.

He still had a hard time believing it was over.

Well. Mostly over. At least the Jäger Express part of this program was over. Now to lay low for a few months, find odd jobs...

Through the skylight he could see dusk coming on, but when he opened it Schwarzburg's noises barely seemed to be slowing down. It was so strange to be in a city without a curfew. The inn itself might well be rowdy until eleven at night, not that he heard much from up here but ...

If the mail left at six sharp, he had better write any letter he wanted to send now. He sat at the desk, got the scrap of paper the innkeeper had given him out of his bag. Pen, pen -- ah, yes, there was a pencil in the drawer. Better than anything with ink; fair bet it would be dry.

_Mother, Father, Ludmilla,_

_This is Sorin. I had to run away after_

No, wrong start. It was easy to imagine his mail being read. He couldn't give his parents any information on the situation, or the letter would never reach them.

_This is Sorin. I know you are all worried for me, and I am sorry about that. I can't tell you where I am or why I'm gone but I am safe and will come back. I don't have an address for you to write me back but you can forward_

No. Stupid. If his letters could find him, so could anyone else.

No contact at all. He had known that. His hand had just... slipped. Yeah. He used that newfangled bit of gum to erase the incriminating sentence, rubbing so hard the paper ended up with a hole in it.

_I don't have an address for you to write me back, I am very sorry. I trust you will be well during my absence. Please convey my apologies to Master Iliescu._

_I love you all, please do not worry about me._

_Your loving son and brother,  
Sorin Petrescu_

... Pretty terse. He wasn't sure what else to add, though. Anything he could say about the last day would be...

_I had to flee town after being caught catching Viscountess Vaduva breaking one of the Baron's edicts and planning some kind of stupid sparky rebellion. A lone Jäger rescued me and we fled through the woods. Yes, the monster-infested ones. By the way, the Viscountess' cannons spew lava. Don't ask me how it stays hot inside those big stone clanks. Sparks, right?_

_The Jäger was, surprisingly, almost a gentleman. By which I mean he was nice and helpful when he wasn't savaging people or monsters, and he only ravished me a very little bit._

Yes, er... No.

His stomach growled. He folded the letter, wrote the address on it. Eyed his satchel.

He'd been hauling the thing around for a good long time now, and his back and ribs were sore enough he'd rather not bring it along, but...

... The lock on the door didn't seem to be much better quality than the rest of the room.

He had nothing else to his name. Without his tools he wasn't a smith, he was a beggar. He wasn't risking it. With a little sigh he shouldered his bag once again.

He nodded to the innkeeper as he went out, acting casual and his heart speeding up a little from going outside when the curfew was coming. He felt positively brazen. Not that he was a stranger to sneaking out at night, but it wasn't like he'd ever allowed anyone to catch him at it. But there was no curfew!

Outside people were sitting on benches and terraces, strolling down the streets. It was getting dark, though there were lamps. The overall mood was... oddly peaceful.

Which wasn't something he'd had a lot of, recently. He found the post office and dropped his letter in the slot, and then considered -- should he go back to the inn, dine there, and sleep? It'd be cheaper.

At the same time he was still restless, and...

It might be nice to explore a little.

Yes. He was going to do that. Look around, find somewhere to eat (outside, in the dark! Outsiders were _strange_. He needed to try it.) Tomorrow would come soon enough.

He wondered briefly what Velimir would think about the town. He had to have seen a lot of them. He also had to look at them from a very different perspective -- did he note down weak points in the walls or anything like that? Guards? Sorin tried to remember the outer walls. He thought they were maybe a little lower than Vulkanburg's, but he still wouldn't be able to just scale them. Might be stairs, for the guards to patrol on top...

Alright, and now he was planning an escape that would never happen. Or more like _worrying_ about an escape, because he hadn't paid enough attention to the wall's setup to even know if it had stairs to go up or if they were under guard or locked away. Fruitless thoughts.

His stomach growled. Okay, okay. There was a pretty big square ahead, he was sure he'd...

... find... a guardsman... suddenly in his path...

"Sorry, son," the older man told him. "The town square is not crossable tonight."

\--Not an arrest. The man didn't know who Sorin was. "Oh." He craned his neck a little, tried on a smile that came out nervous, lopsided, shaky. "Are they setting up something?"

There were men and women out in the square, some standing still, some crouching, some prowling across, back and forth, all in rough clothes, and most of them glancing up at the sky regularly.

The guardsman snorted. "No, those are the local werewolf pack. I wouldn't advise you to be close when the moon finally decides to come out, they can get a bit... rowdy."

Sorin paled. There were localized packs all over in these mountains, but --

"Why are they in town?" Some of them probably _lived_ in town, he knew, but. But. Those who did would have so many troubles with the neighbors if they actually came out to howl in the streets on moonlit nights.

The size of that group. It bothered him.

The guardsman shrugged both shoulders. "There's a wild Jäger hanging around. Prolly looking for trouble. They get pretty territorial about those. Got to tolerate the Baron's, but a wild one? Psh."

"Oh." Sorin swallowed, gave the man a sickly grin. "I see. Thanks. I'll -- go around now." He turned around to leave, paused. "Uh. When is the moon coming up?"

"Oh, the second the clouds let up, son, your guess is as good as mine."

Dear god. "I see. Thank you! Good luck with the... with them."

He left at a fast walk, started jogging the second he turned a corner. Velimir was --

Velimir hadn't come into the town with him, had waved casually at him and disappeared into the bushes some way off the town's gate, leaving him alone on the road. He wasn't in town but he had to still be around, just outside --

" _Hy just vait for de postal dirigible und hitch a ride until de next town vith Jäger garrison. Iz verra eazy! Hy be back vith mine squad tomorrow._ "

He couldn't be far, he had to -- he had said he'd wait and Sorin was coming up to the gate already and had no plan in mind for a way out. The gate was already closed and barred for the night, there was no way they'd reopen it for some stranger, augh!

\-- Wait. The smaller gate. Person sized. Also barred, but.

Also the guard had seen him and if he hesitated any longer it would look really bad. He approached, rubbing the back of his head nervously.

"Um, good evening?"

He got a suspicious look for his trouble. "Evening, sir, what seems to be the problem?"

Haha. Ha. Alright. Come on, Sorin, be charming. The town was so peaceful because it was safer than most in the area, they had to be more relaxed...

"I, uh. There was this girl, and umm... now there's her father?" He tried on a guileless smile. It came out awkward with nerves -- which was good, because he didn't want to look like a smug butthole either.

"Oh! I see."

"And now I would kind of really enjoy not being, um, anywhere he can find me. Is there, is there any way I could sneak out for a little half-hour so he has time to calm down, or uh, maybe hide in your guardhouse if you don't mind because he seems really very angry and I really don't want to cause trouble but--"

"But you're a strapping fellow," the guard said, laughing at him. "Arms like yours, you're telling me you're afraid of a brawl?"

"Well, no, but not with my girlfriend's _father_ , sir! If I break something she's liable to break it off with me."

He tried on puppy eyes, blushed.

"Well, you can't be in the guardhouse, but I guess if you stay very close to the door you should be pretty safe. The boldest monsters usually take until the middle of the night to come up to the walls, the area's pretty well cleared. What should I look out for?"

Oh thank fuck. "Um. Balding, broken nose... He's not very tall, kind of stooped? Thank you, sir," he added with utter sincerity as the man unbarred the door. "You're a lifesaver. _Literally_."

He stepped out, legs twitching with the need to run; he waited -- somehow -- until the door was barred behind him again to take off down the road.

Where would the Jägermonster be? Not on the road, maybe not even _near_ the road and then Sorin was fucked. His best bet was probably to make himself noticeable as possible in the woods and pray that the Jäger would notice him first. Which side of the road? Where was the post office, left? Right? Right.

There was a high tree over there, twice as big as its fellows. Noticeable. Probably good for keeping watch. (Or hitching a ride from?) It was the only noticeable landmark he could find, at any rate. He found a break in the bushes, started jogging that way. The night was full of animal calls.

Soon it would be full of werewolf calls. He checked the sky between the trees -- still cloudy, but the clouds were moving, a faint silvery haze now visible over the horizon.

He ran faster. He was going to catch a branch to the face and he still couldn't slow down. Oh, and to hell with discretion. "Velimir!" he hissed. "Velimir -- crap. Oi! Jäger!" He'd tripped a bit. His ankle barely twinged. The big tree couldn't be too far, never mind, he'd live, keep going. "Velim--"

Something caught him across the chest and swept him off his feet, and for a second he thought it was a branch; but it accompanied his momentum instead of knocking him down on his ass, and brought him back against a solid chest.

"Hoy dere. Look vhat Hy find." The Jäger peered over his shoulder, mouth and nose starting to gleam faintly -- eyelids too, even weaker, apart from a thin, bright line just along the root of his eyelashes. "Whatchu do here, sveetling?"

Weak-kneed with relief, Sorin caught his wrist for support and tried to bring his legs back under control and regain his balance. "Town," he panted. "Werewolves."

The arm around him tensed so suddenly it was like being held by a very possessive statue.

"They think," Sorin said, "you're wild -- they said. Wild Jäger, they'll hunt as soon as the moon is out, there's clouds for now but there won't be all night--"

"Shh. Hy hear. Ve get movink."

Sorin had all of one second to enjoy being back on his own feet before Velimir started towing him through the trees. "Uh -- hey, wait, I'll just, I'll climb a tree, wait until morning? Or, or if I hurry, the guard said he'd let me--"

The Jäger stopped walking, turned. In the shadow of the trees he was barely an outline, but for the fey gleam of his face.

"Darlink..."

The thing was, he sounded kind of sorry.

"Hyu schmell like me."

Oh.

Oh, _damn_ it. Curse it all to the deepest pits of Hell -- !

"But someone probably tricked them, you're _not_ wild, what if --"

Velimir kept grimly pushing through the bushes. "Hy don't haff mine pack, Hy don't haff orders, Hy don't haff a Wulfenbach _device_. Hy _look_ vild. Und verewolf in der moon madness don't schtop und ask before dey make with de devouring." A pause. "Sorry."

"--For what? It's not your fault." He let out a short, irritated sigh. Funny how his body was less shaky when he already knew a fight would be coming. The uncertainty -- were they going to be noticed, chased, when would it happen, not now, not yet, when?? -- was somehow worse for his nerves. "I don't suppose you can beat them all," he added morosely.

"Hoy, dun sound so doubtful-like! Hy _could!_ With two goot arms, maybe."

Pff. He didn't even know how many werewolves there were. "Oh, so that's not healed yet."

"Nah. But hey, it iz sporting to haff handicap!"

"Since when were Jägermonsters sporting?!"

Velimir laughed, casual and clear, like the creepy darkness and quiet of the forest was of no concern. "Dat iz a fair point. Ahh, it vould be de goot fight either vay, und Hy haff no good fight for days now."

The tone of his voice... Sorin shook his wrist free of Velimir's hold to catch his sleeve and pull on it. "By good fight, you mean it's very likely you'd get killed, don't you."

A careless shrug. "Jah. Iz fine. Ve all end one day--"

Sorin grabbed his elbow, tugged, was aware that the Jäger only came to a stop because he wanted to and felt angrier about it. "Don't you fucking _dare_ even _think_ about dying here!"

Velimir blinked placidly at him. "It iz not sumtin hy _vant_. No member of Jägerkin vant that, or dey die in der making. Vithout mine pack--"

"Your pack's waiting for you!" Sorin interrupted with a growl. "Don't be a total _jerk!_ Do they even know where you went? You're going to just disappear on them like that? How long have you even known them? It's not okay!"

Staring -- and then the Jäger chuckled, _giggled_ , started to laugh all quiet and endless like he was _trying_ to be quiet, he just wasn't going to stop laughing anytime soon.

" _Hey_."

"Ach, sveetling. Hy hear hyu."

"... Also there's how if you die I am going to be in such a mess I have no words for it. I need you alive, so please take it upon yourself to rein in the death by werewolf urge, okay?"

He didn't expect to be reeled in; kissed, even less. The tool satchel dug into the top of his thighs, caught between them, uncomfortable. The kiss was...

Short, but intense. Toothy. Hungry.

Velimir released him so suddenly he stumbled a little. A rough hand patted his cheek. He could still feel the exact places the points of his teeth had pressed into his lower lip.

" _Nize_ boy. Hop on."

Cheeks hot and feeling dizzy, he did, winding his arms around the Jäger's neck to haul himself up his offered back, and then locking his legs around his waist, as high as he could.

He was warm and solid and it felt almost safe -- as long as he was standing still.

The next second he was taking off like a march hare. Sorin buried his face from the nose down against his collar to avoid branches and being thrown around, and watched the little he could see of the forest zip past in fits and starts.

Behind them something started to howl.

\--

"Is that the last of them?"

Sorin peered out of the old abandoned house's window, scanning the island as well as he could in the dark. The moon was still out, but not for long, her edge already bitten into by one of the tallest mountains on the horizon.

They'd gone down the road until the werewolves caught up, and then Velimir had taken to the trees like a one-armed ape with a human backpack, which was as easy and elegant as it sounded. Until they'd run out of trees and into a cliff. Then Velimir had decided handholds were for lesser mortals and if his hindquarters were goat-like he might well adopt their disdain for gravity as well, and hopped his way up a terrifying number of rocky, unforgiving feet.

"Tink so," the Jäger replied.

There was a splash like a huge furry body being shoved in the water. Sorin squinted as the dead werewolf drifted down the rapids. Fair bet it was going to get stuck again a short way down.

"Getting late, und de rest of der pack vill vant a safe place for vhen dey turn back. Dere human form goes splat pretty easy."

"Mm."

They were pretty well treed here, anyway. It was defensible enough, but there was no good point of retreat. Velimir's sense of balance was so good it was ridiculous and he'd almost fallen in at least six times upon crossing.

The island was a pile of rocks and an ancient, gnarly tree, half-strangled by the remnants of the chain the ferrymen had used to anchor their boat. They had left Vulkanburg's great valley, and it wasn't her river; this one was full of rapids and sudden waterfalls and pretty much impassable to the common man. Sorin thought that once upon a time the river must have been calmer around the island, but then rocks had shifted or maybe the front layer of a cliff had fallen in; now it was a series of murderous stone teeth and drown-happy currents. Twenty feet past the island was a waterfall.

A few of the werewolves had tried to follow, and gone over the waterfall. A few smarter ones had gone upstream to let the current get them to the island; the rocks had gotten most of them first, and Velimir had gotten the rest.

Sorin had thrown rocks. He couldn't throw anything big enough to kill -- it would have required he be able to chuck his own weight in stone a dozen feet away -- but enough to injure and distract, yeah.

He wasn't frustrated at all that he couldn't help, by the way. He was strong, but no normal, unaltered human was _that_ strong. Yeah.

"Any new injuries?" he asked as Velimir walked up the slope toward him.

"No, _sir_ ," Velimir replied with crisp seriousness. Sorin snorted. "Hy iz just as injured as when Hy jump on rocks carrying hyu fine posterior und manly beeg arms und slip into de vater."

Sorin huffed. "Speaking of rocks, I have a few throwing ones left, I could arrange for you to see them more closely."

Velimir grinned up at him. "Hy'm good. "

He climbed the last stairs and peered into the house. The roof had partially come down and plants were growing inside; still better than sleeping up in a tree, Sorin supposed.

Or in the drizzling rain, on and off all night and showing no sign of stopping for good.

He followed the Jäger in, found a dry corner, sat. Finally took the bag off his shoulder, which ached.

"I'm so hungry I could eat you whole," he said without thinking, and then flushed hot. Velimir snorted. "I mean _your corpse_. Okay, what did you have in your things--"

He rooted inside his bag, where he'd stuffed Velimir's pilfered provisions -- which, he confirmed, were actually mostly alcohol. Getting drunk didn't seem half-bad right now, if only he wouldn't have to go back on the run with a hangover.

"Hyu can have de sandvich," the Jäger said magnanimously, and broke the rotten chest of drawers against the opposite wall open. Things fell out, squirming -- bugs? What was he --

"Are you _eating those_."

"Mmmm yez. Dey iz better grilled, though." He looked around, casual, popping another squirmy thing in his maw. _Urgh_. "Vonder if ve can light a fire."

"They'll find us," Sorin countered, and busied himself with the sandwich so he wouldn't have to witness that centipede's ignominious end.

"Bah! Dey already know where ve iz. Might as vell be varm."

He came to sit cross-legged beside Sorin, dragging a rotten plank he'd broken off the chest after him. Sorin grimaced, and passed him the bottle of brandy.

"Okay, then, do you have anything to make a fire with? Because I don't, and everything we'll find here is going to be pretty damp."

"...Drat. Knew Hy shoulda keept der lava cannon."

Sorin snorted, chuckled despite himself. When Velimir pouted it showed more of the glowy parts of his lips. Eerie. "How did you plan to carry both the cannon and me?"

There was a quiet moment of peace, only broken by the gross noises of someone chewing through a beetle. Velimir handed him the bottle back. Sorin took a mouthful, because he was thirsty, and because he deserved some relaxation, even in a bottle.

"Good point." The Jäger nodded, ears flopping along. "Hyu owe me, den. C'mere und warm me up."

He wagged his eyebrows. Sorin blushed, again. Argh. "I will kick you in the arm."

"Ho hooo. Hyu leetle lava cannon hyu."

"Do you ever stop flirting?" Sorin glowered tiredly, and didn't even bother to lean away. Velimir was talking a big game but apart from some leaning in that he'd stopped almost as soon as he started, he wasn't doing anything, wasn't even touching him. "It's not even that cold. I mean, it's humid and the air is pretty cool, but--"

"Hokay, fine, let's make out under der pretense ov warming each odder up."

"Pff." Yeah, he wasn't actively interested. Sorin didn't know if he was disappointed or not.

Then again, his teeth would be full of bug bits right now. Eugh.

Crunch, slurp. "Hy mean, de humi-di-tee dun feel cold to schtart vith, but it iz like a big warmth leech. Ve sleep close, or vhen hyu wake op hyu haff de scratch-growly throat."

Sighing, Sorin chewed on another mouthful of sandwich, and tried to ignore Velimir scratching at the wood for plump little larvae. "Yeah, okay." Wow, he was giving in pretty fast. No personal motives there. Purely innocent. Mmh.

It would be pretty nice to hold onto h-- onto _someone_ when they weren't running for their lives, actually. Just holding on, just that.

"Do you ever sleep with other Jäger -- I mean, actual sleep, not. You know. Like... When you're cold. You sounded pretty close, so... Do you guys huddle or anything?"

Velimir watched him in silence for a handful of seconds, head tilted, eyelids glowing under the brim of his hat.

"Vhen iz snowing, yez." A hesitation, barely perceptible. "After a battlefield. Blood loss und all. Gets hyu colder."

Sorin hugged his knees. "Oh."

"Or vhen ve plan to haff de sex, too."

Sorin shoved his shoulder, but not so hard. It had sounded more like a way to derail the conversation away from his fellow Jäger.

Might as well roll with it. It'd be unkind to make him sad, to make him miss them worse. "By the way, are all of you that indiscriminate?"

"Hm?"

"Well, I heard you guys flirt like idiots with just about anyone, but I'm pretty sure not a lot of people think you _mean_ it when you do it to guys. They just think you're being smarmy jerks. Are all of you -- um."

Okay, he couldn't ask it. Now he was imagining that they all were, ah, equal opportunity. In that case wouldn't they, they bonded mostly with each other from what he understood and oh Lords of the Abyss he was imagining all-male orgies now. His brain was _depraved_.

His body too, because _oh_. Men together. Warriors at their peak. It didn't even matter that Jägers were usually monstrous in _some_ way -- it had disturbed him at first but it hadn't even been two days and already he barely noticed the little scales on the bridge of Velimir's nose, or the teeth behind that smile...

" _Pffffff_."

Grumbling, Sorin burrowed vengefully into his sandwich. It didn't hide his burning cheeks as much as he'd hoped it would.

"Ah, keed."

An arm landed around his shoulder, pulled him closer for a quick side-hug. He ducked his head when Velimir ruffled his hair, making a half-hearted noise of protest.

"Iz about hyu invert thing?" Sorin nodded faintly, head still bowed under his hand. Velimir scratched his scalp like he would a cat. "Jägerkin don't care. Hyu live long enuff, hyu may vell get curious or bored or drunk enuff to give it a try at sum point. Most ov uz do prefer de ladies," he added thoughtfully, "but dere iz not always ladies. Or sumtimes de boy iz _very_ pretty."

"What about you?" Sorin mumbled.

"Hm?"

Sorin forced himself to speak up. "You said 'most of us.' Is it like that for you too...?"

The Jäger's rough fingers were caressing the back of his head, back and forth, rough pads brushing his neck. All soft and gentle, not anything that should have shot sparks all down his spine, made his skin break into goosebumps. "Nah. Hy liked both de gurls und de boyz even before. Hyu out-ov-towners are so weird, with de caring und all," he added, quietly teasing.

Sorin made a grumbly sound and leaned a tiny little bit into him. "You Mechanicsburgers. Pff. You're all debauched."

"Und proud ov it."

"Pff."

He shivered, feeling the edge of a claw.

"So are you planning to kiss me or are you waiting on me or -- or what?"

He stared at the other end of the room, face so warm he felt a little dizzy, stomach tied in a knot. Velimir didn't say a thing.

"Because I, I don't think I'm misreading the situation here, you're not petting my hair as a platonic thing and--"

"Do hyu vant to be kissed?"

A breathless little gasp. He bowed his neck under the Jäger's rough palm, nodded just a little bit.

"Do hyu vant more than kissed?"

Sorin hesitated. "I -- don't know. Shouldn't." Yes. _Yes_.

"Hm." He leaned in -- Sorin twitched, turned his head too fast, almost bumped into his face. Kiss? Not yet a kiss. He couldn't think for the wanting. "Gotta sleep soon, so. De goodnight kiss, jah?"

Sorin swallowed an impatient whine. "Yes, yes, okay--"

He was tugged into Velimir's chest, and then tumbled around and he was on his back on the planks, Velimir's body brushing his -- not pressing, not enough contact, deliberately. (Maybe he was trying to keep his injured arm from being caught, maybe that.) Sorin was kissed with slow, patient interest, coaxed to respond and chuckled at right into his own mouth when he tried to speed things up. Groaning in frustration, he wrapped an arm around Velimir's neck, dug his fingers in the way he liked. The Jäger made a little appreciative noise and didn't kiss him one iota more intensely, that _asshole_.

"Jerk," he hissed against his lips, and nipped him. Velimir chuckled again.

"Gudnite kiss iz not s'posed to make hyu _more_ awake, sveethot."

Yeah, the thing with the accent made it pretty obvious that he was being an asshole entirely deliberately. Sorin punched him in the shoulder (lightly, not that he had much space to swing anyway) and turned his face away. " _Jerk_."

Undaunted, Velimir kissed his cheek, his jaw, made his slow way to his neck.

He lingered there, nibbling and then pressing a wet, openmouthed kiss to his skin, and then pulled back.

"Any lower und it stops being kissing."

Sorin growled, frustrated, bumped his fist against his shoulder again. "Oh, come _on_ \--"

His hand was caught, enveloped in a huge hand. Velimir loomed over him on his knees, straddling Sorin's waist. His eyes looked very dark.

"Any lower und mine mouth ends up on hyu nipple und mine hand on your prick, Sorin."

The jolt to his body made him tense all over, his breath come short. Velimir wasn't joking now, not even a little bit.

"Hyu say no, Hy stop. Alvays. But right now, hyu vill not say no. And hyu iz not de only one who vants."

The Jäger's hips twitched, the muscles of his stomach flexing under the hanging, torn shirt. Sorin glanced downward almost involuntarily. His pants looked strained at the front, too. Oh.

Velimir leaned back down, forehead to forehead, his voice gone quiet. It stayed deadly serious.

"Hyu say hyu iz not sure. Hy vant hyu very, _very_ sure."

Sorin took in a breath that shook. He didn't -- he'd never wanted more, never felt -- he'd done things with other boys when he was, what, thirteen, and dated (girls, of course, always) and it felt nice enough and it had never ever felt like this.

Velimir wasn't even _touching_ him.

He sat back up, released his hand, dismounted. Sorin stayed spread out on the floor. After a second he draped his arm across his eyes, closed them tight.

"Keed?"

"Mngh," he mumbled, and didn't move an inch. "Still alive."

A hand touched his elbow. "Ve good?"

Sorin lifted his arm so he could roll his eyes at him. His stupid corkscrew curls were stuck to his forehead with sweat and he could feel the spectacular red blotches everywhere on his face and down his throat, still nowhere near ready to disappear. "We're good."

Sigh. He shuffled his feet, pulled his knees up some to camouflage the tent he was sure Velimir was already entirely aware of, the jerk.

"I think I hate you a little, though."

"Dat's verra flatterink. Thenk hyu."

Sorin shoved at his thigh, which of course didn't budge. "Urgh. Go kiss a werewolf."

"Sure ting. Iz hyu sleeping right here den?"

Yeah, uh. Sorin was pretty sure his legs would be wobbly. Also he didn't really want to parade his crotch problem at eye level, so getting up wasn't really an option.

He was pretty sure the floor wouldn't be that much more comfortable elsewhere, anyway. He turned on his flank, his back to the Jäger. "Might as well."

"Hokay."

Velimir leaned down again, crooked him a smile, and nuzzled his cheek with the rough affection of a dog who had no clue how big it really was (or how stubbly. Ow, prickles.) He dropped a little kiss on his temple, barely avoiding Sorin's forehead bruise, and then rolled onto his back. "Goodnight, dollink."

Sorin craned his neck to watch him, but he just tilted his hat onto his face, stuck his uninjured hand behind his head, and stopped moving entirely.

Sorin thought he would be lying there until dawn nursing his angry erection and glaring at Velimir's fake-sleeping form, but exhaustion caught up in a matter of minutes.

It _was_ cold, when he wasn't moving around at all. He shuffled a little closer to Velimir, until he could feel the warmth he radiated against his back, and sank into sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

The air was cool and damp. Sorin did not approve of that one bit. Bothersome golden light fell through the broken roof, the lack of door. He pressed his face against the only source of warmth, arms tightening thoughtlessly when it tried to get away from him.

It twitched and made a noise like chuckling.

Goddamn. He'd cuddled up, hadn't he.

"It haz been a while since Hy vas de little spoon," Velimir mused. Sorin harrumphed and rubbed his cheek against his exposed shoulder blade, bristles first. Velimir snorted at him.

The wounds really were healed. There were a few pockmarks, paler green, flesh almost entirely filled out underneath...

At least Sorin hadn't pressed his morning glory against him as well. He disentangled himself and sat up, rubbing at his face.

"Don't suppose you've got anything to shave with..."

"No. But iz good. Makes hyu look rugged."

He turned on his back, sat up. Sorin couldn't help but notice he was still cradling his arm. It was hard to see the state of the wounds under the bandage, but the bandage itself was gross with pink-brown ooze, which didn't presage great things.

"That looks pretty nasty. You should probably clean it some--"

"Nah."

Sorin frowned a little. "I don't care if you don't get infections, soon you'll be attracting flies."

Careless shrug. "Hy mean, de second Hy leave de house Hy vill be attacked."

" _What?_ "

Velimir stretched, rounded his back. "Dey iz outside." He picked up his hat and put it back on, casually.

Sorin's stomach dropped. "Oh for pity's sake."

He jumped up on his feet, shoved the bottle back in his satchel and a wadded-up handkerchief in the middle so it wouldn't clink or break. Velimir sat there watching him, scratching at his growing sideburns.

"Why are you still just sitting there?! Would you rather wait until they were _ready_?"

"Hm. It _vould_ be funnier." A faint smile. "Nah, Hy'm waiting until dey try to cross. Because then either dey will be busy with de drowning, or there vill be something to cross with. Mebbe both!" He waved his intact hand carelessly. "See? Hyu gots sum time to pee und things."

Sorin breathed out through his nose, massaged his temples, and started looking around the house for something heavy and solid enough to use as a weapon. Everything wooden was warped with age and either rotten through or brittle and full of splinters. Rocks might be hard to throw accurately from the back of a moving Jäger, might not be worth the extra weight.

"Whatchu looking for?"

"Weapon!"

Behind him, Velimir stood up, cracked his back. "Eh, diz place was looted already. Unless hyu want de rocks... Iz hokay, Hy'll protect hyu."

Sorin growled in frustration. "Maybe I'd like to defend myself _some_ of the time? A little? Fire and bone, I can't even contribute in other ways, I don't even know what's edible out here or how to make a fire without _matches_. You don't even have weapons I could maybe _sharpen_."

"Oh." A pause. When he started talking again it sounded like he was smiling. "Hy do haff de boot knife?"

"You don't use it to fight, though. And it's too short-range for me. If I get that close to someone who's armed with more than their fists..." He slumped. The stairs looked a bit too hazardous for him to want to check out the half of the upstairs rooms that weren't crumbled open onto the sky.

"Put it on a stick?"

Sorin turned to stare at him, gave a long, slow blink. Velimir shrugged, walked up to the staircase, and ripped up pretty much the whole bannister. He held it out, balanced on his hand, and hummed a question.

"... You know what. Why the hell not."

"Awesome! Spear iz lots of fun." Toothy grin. "But furst, hyu go pee. So dat if they attack early hyu do not haff to go on mine back."

Pff. "Yes, _mother_."

"Und no lip from hyu, young man."

"Don't talk to me when I'm pissing, for heaven's sake."

\--

In the end they had no rope to tie the knife on, and by the time they were about to tear Velimir's other shirt sleeve off and braid stripes of it together, the enemies that were gathering in the woods all around reached critical mass.

"Schtick's good enough!" Velimir yelled as he dragged him out of the house at a run, two seconds before it went up in flames.

Sorin followed him down the old stone quay at a dead run. They were in the middle of deploying some kind of fold-up bridge; the bank had gone fuzzy with steam as stone clanks shot lava into the river to make solid landings for the bridge's feet.

"Steam steam _steam!_ "

"Hy remember!"

Lava arced overhead, fell sizzling behind them, before them, so close it felt like a slap of desert air. His eyebrows and the ends of his hair started to crinkle up.

He followed Velimir's jump across it, because what else could he do at this point.

"Hoy, not fun," the Jäger was grumbling as he picked up a rock to throw back. "Go!"

He was pointing at the other bank, in between two throws. Sorin hopped to the closest rock, wobbled. The shoulder bag wasn't great for balance purposes; he planted the banister in the water to brace on, vaulted to the next.

He really didn't think he could cross the whole thing like this. Hell. What if they thought to spray lava upstream and let the breeze carry scalding steam to him?

The current tried to tear the pole from his hand. He leaned harder, got it stuck in a crack, had to pull hard to free it again, and he was losing his momentum and would never be able to make it to the next rock if he stopped there. Gritting his teeth, he threw himself across.

He slipped on landing, landed chest flat against the rock, in the water down to his thighs. He scrambled back up, the breath knocked out of him, his muscles clenching painfully. _This_ river was cold like the Polar Lords' own piss. Cripes.

He looked back, still huddled down on the rock and dripping, panting. Velimir had gone back down the quay, was drawing fire.

" _Cross!_ " he yelled across the noise.

Sorin didn't know _how_. He was only a middling swimmer -- hot springs were plenty in his town, pools not so much. The water was so cold it made it hard to breathe. There were three more rocks breaching the surface and then nothing for about twelve, fifteen feet -- nothing to get caught on, nothing visible, but the water flowed fast there and the waterfall waited, and -- his tools, how was he meant to swim with them, or with his shoes, or --

 _Cross_ , he'd said. And the mechanical bridge had almost reached the island now.

Sorin took off his shoes, tied the laces together, slung them across his neck, and stood up.

Then he hopped as fast as he could across the rocks, before planting his pole and letting his momentum take him as far as it could.

The bottom of the river was a little farther down than he'd planned, and it fouled him, but he'd thrown himself over with desperate strength; he wobbled at the apex of his arc, almost falling backwards again, and then finished swinging ahead.

Splash.

Blue _fire_ , so cold, his fingers and toes felt numb already. He rolled onto his back, the baluster held ahead -- jousting with the rocks, hah, smart -- and tried to aim himself toward the bank. The current tore him away ten times faster than he could move sideways, tried to pull him under. Already he was drawing even with the bulk of the island -- his cheap man's lance impacted with a rock full on, bruising his stomach, winding him. He kicked, wriggled for the current to swing him toward the bank before it could push hard enough to just dislodge him. Going _over_ the rocks --

Calmer waters, barely -- he dogpaddled as hard as he could, water getting up his nose, sticking his hair to his face, so cold his muscles felt like they were seizing.

His hand hit a rock with so much force he stopped feeling the whole thing for a minute. He scrambled to grab a hold, climb up enough to breathe.

Another five feet to the bank.

The steep, embedded with sharp rocks bank.

He didn't want to go any farther. Panting, blinking hard, he shook water out of his hair, crawled his wobbly way onto his hands and knees.

Yeah, okay, he was just going to bridge the gap with the baluster and drag himself across hand over hand. Okay. Any second now.

Okay.

He was curled up around the stick two steps away from the bank and considering his climbing options when a hooved foot landed on the rock before his nose and a hand caught him by the back of the shirt to haul him out of the water. He gripped back with his free hand, wrapped his arm around Velimir's neck, not even shaking yet.

He clung like a baby monkey as Velimir scaled the slope. The jerk wasn't even wet. Well, Sorin was going to show him, mwaha... Okay, now the shivering was kicking in. Why not.

"Keeping der pole?" the Jäger inquired as he grabbed onto a tree to pull himself up.

"This pole is my new best friend," he stuttered into Velimir's shoulder.

"Ho?"

"I jousted rocks," he informed him, teeth clacking away.

The Jäger tilted his head back to squint at him. "Did hyu joust with hyu _head_?"

"No." Flatter terrain. (Somewhat; still slope-y, just not closer to vertical than not.) Trees all around. The sound of the river was slowly receding. "Just tired of all this crap."

A few of the trees were burning, but hey, you couldn't have everything.

"Hokay, hyu go on de back und we go. Sorin, sveethart?"

"Yeah, okay." He wobbled a little when he had to stand and take his own weight, wobbled some more when he leaned forward to put his shoes back on. "Wow. I don't feel so good."

A warm, dry hand cupped his face, patted his cheek, tugged the pole out of his clenched hand. "Hyu just have to hold on."

He did that. He was getting used to it now, arms wrapped around Velimir's collarbone -- not his throat, didn't want to strangle him -- knees clamped high, ankles locked together. Strong muscle flexing everywhere against him, warmth.

"I'm _frozen_ ," he mumbled, in case Velimir hadn't noticed.

"De good news is our enemy like der warm things!"

"Hrrfrgh."

"... Hy warm hyu up vith mine body de second we lose them, darlink," Velimir said, predictably, though the tone wasn't entirely flirty. More like flirty to hide... worried? Apologetic? His voice quieted a little as he continued. "Forgot how much cold hyu human types can take. Dun get hyuself sick now."

"I'll be fine. Just so _tired_..."

How long had they even slept for? He squinted, but couldn't make out the position of the sun. It had been dawn or almost when the werewolves gave up. He doubted it was even quite noon now.

He pressed his face against the Jäger's shoulder. It bounced against his face as Velimir hopped between the trees with his feet together like a prancing goat. Sorin didn't even care.

"Hoy. Keep talking. Tell me vhat hyu see."

Sorin groaned. "You _jackass_. You can't even let me sleep on you?"

"Either hyu talk or hyu walk!"

Damn it. He craned his neck to look behind them, cold water trailing across his face. "I see trees. Some of them are on fire. Not new ones, though. I see some more trees... And other trees..."

The Jäger chuckled quietly. "Hokay, fine. Just don't go quiet now. Hy dun know vhat to do for shock apart from brandy und cold water, und we just tried that."

He went quiet as he negotiated a slab of borderline vertical rock -- poing, poing, only grunting a little with the effort.

"What are your legs even made of, it's ridiculous. Do all Jäger jump like you?"

"Haha, no. Dat is mine per-sonal trick. Hy mean some of mine brothers can do that, but not a lot."

Sorin hummed, eyes closing again. "The glowy thing?"

"Not rare! De masters thot it looks nice und scary."

"Hm." Yeah, it was a little interesting. Less interesting than the exhaustion. He just wanted to sink in and...

" _Hoy, lava buns!_ "

Sorin's arms jerked tighter around Velimir's neck. The asshole had almost dumped him!

"Tell me about home."

... Yeah. Home. He needed to survive and go back there. If only to tell everyone he was still alive. "Parents... little sister. She's sixteen. Brat. But she's tough. Master Iliescu's the blacksmith I'm apprenticing with..."

... Rozalia was the daughter of the blacksmith he was apprenticing with...

"... They've got to be sick with worry by now. Don't know when the letter will get there--"

Velimir braked so suddenly Sorin's nose hit his skull hard enough to make his eyes water, and the hat almost fell off. Velimir did an odd bobbing motion to get back under it and balance it again, and used the muscles in his shoulder and upper arm to get his injured hand to nudge it back the rest of the way.

"Ow! What the--"

"Hyu sent them a _letter_."

"I didn't tell them anything! Only that I was still alive. And I knew the postal stamp would tell them where I was, I wasn't planning to _stay_ in Schwarzburg! I was going to go look for a caravan next thing. I'm not stupid!"

Velimir craned his head to look at him from under the rim. "Hyu told everyone hyu _care_. Dey probably guess thot already, but dey dun _know_. Now they know. Und dey chust haff to yell at you, surrender or dey die, und _den_ vhat?"

Sorin bit his cheek. "They could do it either way..."

"Yes, but if dey doubt, vhen hyu dun allow it to move hyu, dey just shrug it off und tink hyu don't care after all und it dun work on hyu, und keeping hyu parents is worthless. Vhen hyu _confirm_ , dey just think dey need to push _harder_." The Jäger sighed, shook his head. "Ach, kid."

Sorin swallowed. His throat had gone tight. "How -- how bad is it?"

Velimir started trotting again as he thought. "Hy dun know, but der Baron vill see de many forest fires und wonder already. If she thinks she can keep things hidden vith chust a leetle kidnapping of her own peasants... Hyu know her better. What do hyu think?"

Strangely, it wasn't the multiple instances of molten rock being shot at them that decided him. In the Viscountess' view no doubt they were fugitives, traitors. It was the fact that she'd been willing to have the clanks shoot lava at the _aqueduct_.

Ruining one of the greatest feats of engineering of the town, cutting off all water for the whole of Vulkanburg -- for the sake of killing them?

"Bad," he concluded. He pressed his forehead against Velimir's shoulder, eyes scrunched closed. Fuck. _Fuck_. "Blast me down to hell, I _am_ stupid."

"Hyu iz inexperienced. Iz not de same thing."

"It's the same _result_ ," Sorin said, growling.

Velimir grunted. "True."

Sorin flinched, and then decided it made him hate Velimir less than soothing platitudes.

He took a deep breath, tried to think it through. As soon as the mail got to Vulkanburg this evening, the Viscountess would know she had leverage. "What do we -- is there anything --"

He couldn't figure out a solution.

"Can anything be done about it, or should I just -- just accept that it's going to happen and..."

He couldn't accept it, couldn't, but what could he _do_ on his own? He was a burden already.

"De choices to make it not happen for sure is, attack de postal dirigible und steal hyu letter back, or be vith der Baron before tonight, so she haz bigger worm to fry."

He sounded calm, detached. It wasn't about him. It was _normal_ for him. Things that happened. Things he didn't really have a reason to get worked up about.

It was Sorin's fault.

"How likely are we to get to the Baron that fast?"

The Jäger snorted quietly. "Vell. Ve could _mebbe_ find a lost sciencey portal machine."

Damn it all to _hell_.

His hands were fisted on Velimir's breastbone. He tried very hard not to punch things, seeing as the only thing to punch was Velimir. "And on top of the sciencey portal machine, the postal dirigible will require a small army and a sky elevator, won't it?"

There was no reply for a couple of seconds. Velimir didn't throw him a glance, or anything, but the quality of his silence seemed... Sorin couldn't put it into words.

"... Velimir?"

"Hy know vhere ve iz. Mostly." A pause. "Hy know vhere de dirigible pass. Hy don't know vhat time it is und if it passed already. Hy don't know if de madgurl's hounds catch up before then. Hy _do_ know if ve vant to meet it ve have to get to a pass, und dere iz no way we iz not seen. Iz all dead flat rock und no bushy trees."

Oh. "But -- if we did get to the pass... and we were in time...?"

"Den we get in de dirigible und dey can't get us. Unless dey vant to attack de postal services, but wooha, thot iz _trouble_. Dey dun joke about der letters."

"And if the dirigible passed already..."

Velimir shrugged. "Ve die."

And the Baron would never know. Not until she started her war. Sorin didn't care how fast Wulfenbach crushed her afterwards, there would be dead people first. A lot of them.

"And if we don't go after the dirigible to fix my stupid mistake and just keep going as we were?"

"Hy keep to de rocky slopes vhere her golems can't follow. She get hyu poppa und momma to tempt vith. Hy keep hyu from going." A pause. (She kills them, or maybe she doesn't.) "Ve iz in Ibarath by this time tomorrow."

Sorin swallowed.

"Can I run on my own for a bit, or -- how close are they?"

A tilt of the head, long floppy ears flicking to catch the wind. "Hm. Nah, hyu can. For a bit." Velimir slowed down, allowed Sorin to let go and slip to the ground. The slope was rocky, full of short bushes and hardy grass, but he could still manage it, if hardly with the same speed.

Velimir handed him the banister back. Sorin took it, feeling a bit silly for insisting they keep it. It would serve as a walking stick, at any rate.

He kept going at a trot for a while -- five, ten minutes, he wasn't sure, his eyes on the ground to make sure he didn't trip, his thoughts racing in circles.

'I keep you from going,' he'd said. Tie Sorin up? Or just overpower him? Anyway, that was... Velimir wasn't going to allow him to surrender. He just wasn't. No matter what Sorin wanted. Thought he wanted. Was forced to want.

It wasn't bad, having that route cut off from him. He didn't want to know what he might do if it was left open. Things he would be ashamed of himself about afterwards, for sure, if he survived. It was...

It was _nice_ of him, actually. Should the Viscountess kill his family, Sorin would never have to wonder if she might have spared them had he surrendered (hint: pretty unlikely. They were a traitor's family, after all.) Should they die, he could tell himself it had been Velimir's decision.

Velimir's fault.

Yeah. No.

"Let's keep going." He swallowed. "No dirigible."

The Jäger peered down at him from an outcropping of rock five meters up. "Ho?"

"I can't be that selfish. You need to tell the Baron, the Baron needs to stop her, no one else can. You have to get there. It was my mistake, my -- I'll deal with it. I can't ask you to take so many stupid risks, endanger your mission--"

A bit late, it occurred to him to wonder... Had the Jäger even been asking for his opinion? Or just laying out facts to let him figure out the obvious -- that there was no way he would allow it?

Velimir hopped off his perch, landed beside him in a deep crouch, bounced back standing.

Smiled at him.

"Dat _iz_ too bad. Hy chust see de dirigible comink _right_ _now_."

Sorin stopped breathing.

" _You can not mean what I think you mean._ "

The Jäger laughed. "Shore ken! C'mon, ve haff a big balloon to catch!"

He swept Sorin off his feet and threw him over his shoulder, threw himself across a gap. Sorin yelled a little, grunted when his satchel slipped and landed on his head. Oof. At this rate he was going to end up with a crown of bruises. He really needed to find a way to secure it better.

"You can't -- hff -- you can't _do that!_ What if -- what if you _die_? Who will -- tell the Baron -- then?" He couldn't breathe enough to speak, argh! He braced against the small of Velimir's back, reared back. "Who will tell your _friends!?_ "

Velimir allowed him to slip off his shoulder only until he could wrap his arm just under Sorin's ass, hold him standing awkwardly in his grip, thighs pressed to the side of his chest. The last time Sorin had been held like this he was seven years old.

"Sorin, sveetie. Either vay ve go, ve can die." He looked up at him. His eyes were such an ordinary human brown in the middle of all that blue-green skin. "Und if it looks like you die no matter vhat -- I vill leave you und go on. I like you -- but everyone dies. Mine brothers die, und humans die even _more_. We iz alive now, und in de meantime..." Velimir shrugged his shoulders. "Hyu way sounds more fun."

Throat gone tight, Sorin wrapped an arm around the top of his head (so, his hat) and hugged that, since it was what he could reach, and never mind that he almost pushed the flat top in. Velimir wobbled dangerously.

"Hoy! Hat on mine face! Halt! Halt!"

He swayed like he was losing his balance at the edge of the slope. Sorin released him, and he steadied in barely half a second, the big faking liar.

Sorin's throat was still a big knot and his eyes lakes in progress, though at least nothing was flowing yet. "You _jerk_. I should steal that hat off you. You'd deserve it."

Velimir scoffed. "Try it und your butt is mine."

He patted it. Sorin jumped a little bit.

"All good?"

Eyelashes lowered, Sorin nodded. "Mm."

"Goot, becuz der hounds iz almost on us."

\--

The Viscountess figured out where they were going while they were still quite a bit away from it, and Velimir had to take off like a bat out of hell and zigzag through the woods to try to dodge the ambushing spider clanks. The thing was, the hounds had found their trail, and they were catching up.

The fifth time they blocked them from going back toward the pass, Sorin had had enough. "We're so danged close!" he snarled. The dogs didn't care. Baying, they sped on after them.

Velimir was spending all his breath keeping ahead of them, and it wasn't enough.

And they were alerting their enemies to their exact position...!

He'd been embarrassed of having kept the banister so long -- too-long plank that almost got them tangled up in thorn bushes more times than he could count, useless weapon more for his comfort than for any use it might see in reality.

He saw the polecat frozen in shock on its branch as they passed it, and he stretched past Velimir's shoulder with the banister held out and thwacked it right off.

Three seconds later the hounds' howls had definitely changed tones, and Velimir almost sent them to their deaths with his laughing fit.

"De stink!" he sputtered between two giggles. "Hyu iz evil! _Niiiize_."

Sorin didn't even know why he laughed then. Frustration and the absurdity of their situation -- how was this his life, his life wasn't this -- "I make it look good, though!"

"Mm, _yes_."

When they broke out of the bushes at the top of the slope he was still grinning.

There were stone clanks everywhere.

There were spider clanks. There was the Viscountess, riding in a golden one, far toward the back. It bristled with cannons.

The dirigible glided on the wind toward the pass, almost ponderously, only it was rising. "It's thrown its ballast," Sorin said, stomach sinking farther.

It had seen the gathered platoon. It wanted no part in it. By the time it crossed the pass it would be so high... How the hell were they meant to--

Velimir took off like a horse at the gate -- right for the stone clanks.

 _Trust him_ , Sorin told himself, _trust him trust him trust_ \--

The Jäger veered hard, so low to the ground Sorin felt his own elbow skim rock. Lava gushed overhead.

The dirigible kept rising.

Another hairpin turn; the hair on the top of Sorin's head crinkled with sudden heat. " _Ken't get to **her** , raaaargh--_"

" _Then escape!_ " he yelled over the noise of the lava cannons.

The Jäger hissed in frustration. It didn't sound anything like human.

Sorin tightened his hold, brief -- a hug -- and then let go with one hand and swung the banister into a clank's legs, a last ditch attempt to trip it up. The wood splintered without slowing it down.

Swearing, Velimir escaped, racing for the peak. The dirigible was engaged in the pass now, nose passing through, the envelope maybe sixty or eighty feet long from tip to tip, the mostly-enclosed cabin underneath a much shorter twenty...

So far away.

Sorin had seen Velimir jump. He didn't know if the man could make it alone. There was no way he would make it while carrying Sorin.

" _Can you throw me that high?_ "

Velimir grunted -- acknowledgement or surprise, he wasn't sure. " _Hyu sure? Landing vill mebbe hurt--_ "

" _Yeah, so will she!_ "

A short laugh.

They ricocheted off the rocks, once, twice, rising fast, and then -- and then they were jumping into the void and there was nothing underneath but air and then clanks and then _her_.

And then Velimir's hand was in his collar and flinging him off.

He pinwheeled in the air -- curled up on instinct, body howling -- he was going to die, going to fall and die, break himself on the rocks and --

He didn't even feel any pain upon impact, not at first, he only knew he'd touched down because something jarred his stomach even worse, and then his back hit something so hard he saw stars. The world swayed around him -- had he stopped? It didn't feel like he'd stopped. He couldn't breathe.

His knees were falling on his head. He was -- huh. Down was this way. He was upside down. He'd fetched up against the guardrail, on his shoulders and upper back, his ass in the air. He wriggled weakly, fell to the side with a thump.

Oh. Wow, was this hunk of rope messy. Whoops. He crawled out of it, kicked some rope off his ankle, tried to sit.

"Don't move."

Awesome. The dirigible had guards.

Well, of course.

He blinked up -- two people in mail uniform before him with long rifles. The cabin, the pilot, two more guards.

The lady aiming at him looked particularly no-nonsense.

"We've got to get to Baron Wulfenbach," Sorin panted, and raised a hand to feel his head. A rifle ratcheted threateningly. He dropped his hand. "The Lady of Vulkanburg--"

"The mail is _neutral!_ " she snapped. Then, over her shoulder, as the other guard stepped up to Sorin to subdue him, "Drop the rest of the ballasts!"

Sorin kicked out at the man's leg with both feet, scrambled over him, threw himself into the narrow passageway between the cabin and the guardrail.

There was a door. He threw his shoulder into it. There were two guards aiming their rifles at him.

"Don't you _dare!_ " he yelled, at the end of his patience.

The cabin was small. He pulled a wrench from his bag, swung it hard into the nearest rifle's barrel. Crack. Then he was in the pilot's face, his other hand in his collar, and talking very slowly.

"The ballast stays right where it is. If you abandon that man I will throw you down after him. _Are we clear_."

"Let him go or I'll shoot!"

Yeah, no. He had the pilot bent over backward on his command post. At this angle the bullet would come out of his head and hit the instruments. Sorin scoffed.

"You'd be doing me a _favor_ \--"

"I'm not joking!"

" _Me neither, goddamnit!_ " he yelled back, looking up at the guard so fast the blood making its way down his temple took a swerve across his eye.

"Vell, dat's good," Velimir said, and put a companionable elbow on the shoulder of the guard whose rifle Sorin had dinged. "Now be a doll und dump de ballast, yez?"

A beat of silence.

"--Right away, herr Jäger."

Sorin shoved off the pilot, suddenly remembering he was still bending him over backward on his instruments, and then swayed. A hand caught his elbow, guiding him back to a chair; he slumped, boneless, hand rising to touch his skull. This time no one interrupted him.

Ow. He pulled his hand back, fingers coated in blood. His back felt like a giant bruise; possibly one with splinters in it but the pain was still too dull and diffuse to tell for sure.

"Um. Sorry for the... Yeah. Sorry."

He blinked again, staring at his hand.

He was alive. Velimir was alive. They were... Safe?

Velimir patted Sorin's arm, and turned to yell over his shoulder, "Dump de ballast before de madgirl forget what goes up comes down on her people und she fry us in de air!"

" _Yes sir!_ "

Sorin laughed breathlessly, and went limp in his chair. He let his head fall back, only grunting a little when it thumped against the wall. Alive. Alive and rising fast, mountains sliding down in the windows and then the sky all around, puffy clouds and a few patches of blue.

"How did you even get onboard?" he thought to ask.

"Hy jump to a pine tree, grab de tip. Very swingy."

Huh. Using a tree as a catapult. Very Jägerish. He closed his eyes, letting his shoulders drop with his exhaustion. "Was the tree perchance on fire at the time."

"Ov corze."

"Knew it."

Velimir walked away to talk to the pilot and the head of the guards, something about confirming he was a Wulfenbach Jäger -- "Ho yez! Iz a sek-ret mission. Verra sottle." -- and whether he wanted them to change routes -- "Which we absolutely cannot do--" "Nah, iz fine, hyu go, we iz not stayink long." "Oh, good."

Sorin forced himself awake, felt around the bag for his much-abused handkerchief. It was stuck under a pile of shards that had been the bottle of brandy, which he figured out when his fingers met them. Ow. He sucked on his fingertip and glared tiredly at the mess. His tools would be fine, but... his bag was going to stink _so bad_.

At least the handkerchief should be mostly sterile now. He shook small shards out of it, then dabbed cautiously at his skull. It burned like all the fires of hell. When he measured with his index finger, though, the injury didn't seem that huge. Maybe two knuckles long.

"Say, hyu vouldn't happen to haff any _food_?"

Oh gears and grits. Food. Yes. Please. Sorin looked up hopefully. One of the guards winced back, traced his finger across his face. What was he -- oh right, yeah, blood. Sorin wiped it off as well as he could. His face must be abraded too, because it burned some more. He probably looked cleaner afterwards, though. "God yes. I haven't eaten properly in -- I can't even remember. Can you spare anything at all? Or, or even just water. Please?"

"Cripes," one of the soldiers said as he puttered around the cabin, "how old even are you?"

"Um. Nineteen? I'm an apprentice."

"Apprentice spy?"

Sorin spluttered. "Um, _no_. Blacksmith. I really want to go back," he added plaintively, eyes glued to the sausage sandwich the man was pulling out of a cupboard. "Thank you, you're really nice, don't feed him, he eats bugs, it's gross, he'll be fine."

" _Hoy!_ " Velimir protested through the glass -- he'd stepped out to talk to the head guard lady. "Hyu little ingrate!"

"If you try to take this sausage from me I will shove you off the balloon. I'll shove everyone, and then I'll go on vacation to the sea. Yeah. Okay, I don't know what's wrong with me."

He gave Velimir a bewildered look. His hands were shaking around the sandwich. Velimir quirked him a side-smile that showed almost no teeth. "Iz combat nerves, keed. Just drink sumting."

"The brandy's dead," Sorin informed him.

Velimir made a shocked face. "Oh no!"

"Stop laughing at me."

"Stop beink laffed-at-able!"

"That's not even a word!"

The head guard shook her head and leaned in the door. She was still frowning faintly and did not look happy, but she pointed at him and said, "Eat your sandwich," so he did.

It was a delicious sandwich, even if swallowing with his mouth dry and his stomach still randomly doing somersaults got difficult at times. The pilot was still throwing him little nervous looks over his shoulder.

Sorin was still holding the wrench he'd almost strangled him with. Whoops. He shoved it back into the satchel blindly, not bothering to put it into its slot. Shards went crunch.

"So den how long until hyu get to Vulkanburg?"

"Uh -- with this wind, we should be there in four hours? And then on to the relay point for the villages of the mountain behind--"

"Huh. No garrison dere either." Velimir looked at Sorin, stepped back inside toward him. Sorin hurried to swallow his mouthful.

"Yeah?"

The Jäger crouched before him, balanced on his hooves, elbows on his knees. "Doing good?"

"Better now." He furtively eyed what was left of his sandwich, then held it out with an eyebrow up casually and his cheeks reddening. Velimir snorted at him, but then stole it off his hand and swallowed it in one big gulp.

"Thenks." His voice went quieter, more personal. "So. Hyu want ve hide here until de big mountains?"

Not moving for five or six hours did sound good, but everything after that... "And have to cross over to Wulfenbach territory all over again?" Sorin grimaced. "Even if she lost track of us... I'm so _tired_ of the woods."

Velimir nodded. "Right. Best get off sooner den later, den. Ve iz backtracking enough as it is."

Sighing, Sorin nodded and hauled himself out of his chair by pure willpower.

He made his way to the head guard, knees still a bit wobbly. "Ma'am? It's -- if you have to tell them where you put us down that's fine, but she's -- if she thinks you know something... You had better not stay in Vulkanburg long. It's -- not going to end well."

She stared at him like she thought she could cut his skull open with her eyes and read what was going on in there.

"But if you can -- send the Baron a message? Can you do that?"

"This is about the lava cannons? We were going to report those to him no matter what," she said dryly, but he thought she relaxed a little. "The Jägermonster said we should, as well."

"Okay, good. That's. Yeah, good. And uh, I'm sorry to tell you because it's, I mean, she won't be happy if she guesses that you know, and it's going to be hard to pretend you don't, but if you could make _sure_ to tell the Baron, she has weapons of mass destruction and she's planning to use them?"

The face she made was ... "Oh, great thundering Lord, not _again_."

"Sorry."

"We'll be sure to send word," she said firmly, and didn't add, 'in case the two of you don't make it' which was a kindness, because she sure was thinking it.

To be fair, so was Sorin.

He nodded, feeling wobbly and a bit lost. What else should he... Velimir would probably take up the slack, he knew how these things went better, but sometimes he was kind of. Careless. About some things, the human relations part of things.

The balloon started to go down and Sorin made his way out of the cabin, leaning into the wind to breathe, eyes closed for a second. It settled him a little, though by far not enough.

"Five minutes," the pilot said crisply, and Sorin and Velimir looked at each other and nodded, and Velimir went back inside to the big locked door that didn't stay locked long.

"What are you _doing_?!"

Everyone started yelling, rifles waving. Sorin caught a barrel in his hand as it waved past his face trying to aim at Velimir and pushed it up toward the envelope. The guard tried to yank it free of his grip, and didn't manage. It was good to be stronger than someone for once. He'd missed it.

"Wulfenbach Jäger or not, the sanctity of the mail is absolute!" the woman was yelling, and the pilot was yelling, and another two of the guards were protesting a lot as well. Sorin winced a little and waited for Velimir to reemerge.

"Um, vhat's hyu last name again?"

"Petrescu," Sorin said patiently, and sighed. Maybe he should have gone instead. "Uh, can you read?"

"Not at all!" Velimir proclaimed cheerfully, accent so thick he could have choked on it. "But diz one schmells like hyu!"

Okay, so he could totally read. "Yeah, that's the one."

"We will not allow you to take--"

"Three villagers will _die_ if this letter gets there," Sorin snapped back, and held out his hand. "Also it's mine anyways."

Velimir handed the letter over as he stepped out of the cabin. Sorin wasted no time in shredding it into pieces. He shoved them in his satchel to get soaked in brandy rather than spread them out as evidence over the landscape and stepped up to climb onto the back Velimir was offering him.

"Thanks for the help. And the sandwich. I won't forget."

Velimir hopped onto the guardrail and flung the two of them out and into the trees underneath. Sorin pressed his face against him and waited it out.

They made their way to the ground in a fracas of broken branches and startled crows. Velimir took a second to orient himself and started walking. Sorin squirmed a little.

"Put me down, I should walk."

"Hyu iz hurt."

"Not that bad. We can't have you tired out if... if stuff happens." He knuckled at his eye. "Also I need to wake myself up. I feel like I'm crashing like a balloon with an envelope full of lead." Or lava. Mm.

Velimir grunted his acquiescence and let him slide to the ground. Sorin paused to fish as much glass out of his satchel as he could and hide it under a pile of leaves, though he kept the biggest shard in case he needed to cut something and Velimir's boot knife was out of reach. Just... just in case.

"I really need to rinse this off soon." He grimaced. "Also drink. I should have drank up there." It was cold so high up on the slopes, but there wouldn't be snow. Water would be nothing but rivulets, though.

"Hy told hyu so."

Sigh. "You told me so."

"Hy find sumting soon," Velimir said, a little nicer.

He cupped Sorin's cheek, tilted his head up. Sorin blinked at him. Did he want to look at his wounds...?

He pressed a soft, short kiss to his mouth, crooked him a faint smile.

Sorin exhaled shakily against his lips and leaned against his chest, forehead pressed to his collarbone. Velimir's injured arm was caught between them; he twitched, tried not to put too much pressure on it. "Sorry--"

"Hyu iz doing good." A teasing chuckle. "Fur a soft, pretty leetle civilian, dat iz."

Sorin snorted his disdain. "Yeah, right."

"Hyu tell me to throw hyu, den when Hy get dere, hyu is knocking people over right und left und sneering in de face of guns und being all snarly. _Rowr_."

Apparently Sorin hadn't lost enough blood that blushing proved difficult, which was something he regretted a little right at the moment.

"... Was there _another_ way to get up there?"

Velimir hummed thoughtfully, eyes raised to the brim of his hat in thought. "Vell. Hy managed it vithout someone to throw _me_..."

Sorin groaned and slumped back against him, forehead thumping on his collarbone and hitting the buttons of his collar. Ow. "You were doing so well with the comforting until _just then_. Right there. That is where you fell off the comforting wagon."

Velimir laughed in his ear and then kissed his neck just under it. Sorin shivered.

"Hy can try again?" he purred.

"No, too late, bzzt. We need to start moving before I fall asleep on you. Chop chop."

"Hy _vould_ ," Velimir said dubiously, "but hyu iz gonna fall on hyu pretty face."

Sighing through his nose at this totally unfair and biased assessment, Sorin pushed off his chest and straightened up.

Now he was standing straight and his hand was on Velimir's chest and he didn't really want to take it off. Hm.

"My face is not pretty anyway," he thought to say, thirty seconds too late. "I've got a manly nose and stubble everywhere."

"Iz very pretty stubble!" Velimir said comfortingly, complete with a wise nod.

"Oh, take a hike," Sorin exclaimed, and finally managed to push Velimir away and start walking.

Heh. He wasn't even entirely dry from the river. It was the middle of the afternoon and he'd crossed rapids and thrown a polecat at hunting dogs and flown like a rock thrown at high velocity at something painful and threatened armed people with a wrench.

Also eaten a sandwich. He could still taste it a little, if he concentrated. He was going to miss that sandwich.

He really wished they could have stayed in the dirigible, they could have afforded to curl up in a corner -- together, side by side, warm and safe, lulled to sleep by the wind and the whirring mechanisms, with people who hadn't wanted to kill them past the first...

"...They called you the Jäger," he said, and only heard himself once it was out of his mouth.

"Didn't tell dem mine name," Velimir replied philosophically.

Sorin frowned, dissatisfied. It... made sense, but. Still itched at him. He wasn't sure why.

"I think even if you'd told them your name..."

... He'd done the same, really. Thought of Velimir as a Jägermonster long before he thought of him as a person. It was a common attitude. They'd otherwise been fairly decent, but...

"Dey dun need to know mine name. Und iz not going to need it." He looked at Sorin, calm and steady, only glowing a very little bit under the hat. "By der way."

"Hmm?"

"Mine friends call me Veli. Unless dey is de superior officer und Hy did sumting dumb." A doubtful pause. "Or dey iz like, der Baron himself. Der Baron doez not call me Veli. Or his sparky people und assistants und things. Jah, no, dey don't need mine name either. Iz more, _hoy, hyu!_ Gud enuff."

A pause.

"Hy mean. If hyu vanted. Velimir haz too many seellables. Mine own momma called me Veli. Good company."

Sorin chuckled despite himself. "Your mother?"

"Jah. Und mine sveetharts." Was he looking away? Oh. He was scratching at the stubble on his chin. Sorin's chest did something complicated with possibly smuggled helium bottles. "Und mine brodders Hy guess but dey iz too dumb for so many letters."

Sorin's shoulders shook with smothered laughter. "That _is_ good company."

"Right!" Velimir told him, vindicated. Sorin smiled back, helpless to stop it.

"Right."

He took Velimir's big, rough hand. Velimir squeezed back.

They walked through the forest and held hands in silence until the war ferrets exploded out of the bushes and they had to run again.


	6. Chapter 6

"You couldn't wait for a chance to be the big spoon, huh," Sorin said sleepily, and craned his neck to look at the Jäger behind him.

He'd half-woken up earlier to crawl into the warm spot when Velimir disentangled himself and sneaked out of the cave -- for reconnaissance, for his morning pee, for breakfast? Who knew, probably all of those. When Velimir came back in Sorin was still only half-awake and did not intend to go any farther on the road to awareness.

"Iz hyu fault, hyu steal mine spot." He shuffled in the dry leaves he'd piled up in the cave and draped his arm around Sorin's waist, rested his cheek on Sorin's. "Mnh, warm."

It did speed up Sorin's heart, made him feel tingly and warm in the pit of his stomach. When he looked down, though, he grimaced a bit. The arm resting on him was the injured one.

The bandages were really gross.

"I think at this point this is doing more harm than good," he said as he touched the cloth around Velimir's wrist cautiously, trying to ignore the solid body cuddling up against his back. "Or at least not doing much good anymore."

Velimir grumbled. "Hy iz tryink to seduce him all sexy-like, und he talks _bandages_."

"Maybe I wouldn't if you didn't put those bandages on me. Urgh." He ducked his head so that Velimir wouldn't see him smile.

The Jäger nosed his neck, grinned against his skin. Sorin shivered, waiting for a kiss. "Ach, ve ken play de nurse if hyu vants--"

Growl. " _Velimir_."

"Augh. Not de name!"

"Yes de name." Uh. " _The_ name. And don't you dare infect me with your accent."

"Heheh."

His back was sore and bruised from yesterday; when they'd stopped for the night last evening Velimir had pulled a few splinters out of it, too. He didn't really care right now; the press of Velimir's body against him was firm, but the warmth actually felt good and it wasn't like he was poking him with anything that...

... that was actually high enough to prod at his bruises and...

"Oh dear little hundred gods. You _aren't_."

"Hm?" Velimir pushed himself up high enough to see his face, gone pink with its customary swiftness. "--Oh."

He snickered. The jerk actually snickered.

"Nah, iz hokay. Diz is not mine... sword."

"Oh."

He leaned in, purred against Sorin's ear. " _Hy don't haff a sword_."

"One day I am going to kill you very dead," Sorin mused, in a calm voice that didn't do much to hide the howl of frustrated embarrassment building up underneath. "You are the most horrible flirt that ever existed. You're a textbook example of how not to flirt. I don't understand how you think it ever works."

"But _iz it working_."

Yes. God yes. He wanted to reach back and -- Velimir would let him touch him, would let Sorin wrap his hand around his--

He would kiss him and touch him and have sex with him and then --

And then he would go back out to soldier at people and Sorin would spend a very long time missing it, missing him, and never touching another man again except in furtive stolen moments that the whole rest of his life would make him feel guilty about.

It didn't seem to matter right now, but at some point it would matter again, and then...

"Mnh," he said, noncommittal. His throat had gone all tight. Stupid. Couldn't he just enjoy this? There was someone he _liked_ who liked him as a person and was attracted to him. Soon enough he bet they'd have to risk their lives again, maybe they'd even _die_ and.

He pushed himself up, sat in the leaves. Velimir propped himself up on his elbow to give him a quizzical look. His hat stayed on the ground.

He had a leaf caught in that pale sea-foam hair, orange and crinkly. Sorin smiled a little at it and left it where it was.

"Gimme your arm. I'll take that thing off. Can you flex your fingers now?"

Frowning a little, Velimir let him lift his hand and rest it on his knee. Some of his fingers curled, but the last two didn't even twitch. At least the thumb was working... Sorin busied himself pulling the knots open.

"Vhen Hy can use both hands, can Hy use dem on hyu?"

Velimir was giving him the puppy eyes. Sorin snorted and started unwrapping the gross cloth off him.

Velimir tickled the inside of Sorin's knee with his index and middle fingers. They twitched weird like they weren't entirely controlled. "Hy iz good vith just one hand, but Hy get why hyu vant better den dat--"

"You really don't like it when I look at your wounds, huh."

The Jäger sighed loudly, and fell back in the leaves, grumbling. "Mnrgh."

"Why's that? I'm not going to do anything dumb and hurt you worse, you know. I worked in a forge, I know burns. Oh, urgh. Wow. This is less nasty than it was, I guess..."

He used a corner of his own, mostly-clean sleeve to cautiously wipe away some crusted yuckiness and unveil the healing flesh underneath. It sloughed off easily. There was clear liquid, a lot of it dried already, but no pus at all, which was frankly pretty weird. Big patches of shiny-pink scarred flesh were either moving under his cautious fingers like they would detach and fall off soon, or being colonized by blue-green-gray skin.

"Our bodies iz pro-pray-eet-ary information of de Heterodynes," Velimir said quietly, almost grumpy. No, more serious than that. A bit somber. Had Sorin managed to depress him? Wow, he felt a bit guilty now. "Ve is not to haff people not de Masters fix it."

Oh. If he did it would be treason.

"You know I don't know a thing about biology, right? I'm not going to figure anything out." Or tell anyone. No way. Never. "Or fix anything, even. I'm just making sure it's clean so it can fix itself."

Velimir looked up at him, quiet and serious. "Iz why hyu _can_ look."

Sorin brushed his knuckles against his hair once, picked out the leaf gently, then went back to his arm.

"--What's that bit? That little -- whiteish hair thing?"

"Nerve, Hy think."

Oh. _God_. "I ... don't think it's supposed to be outside. Do you feel with it yet?"

"Jah. Iz hokay, de skin vill grow over it." A little pause. "Or Hy cut it off so it grow back right."

"Euuugh." Okay, he couldn't clean anything more without tearing off scabs, and those were better off left alone until they fell on their own. "Do you want it bandaged again or...?

Velimir sat up, lifted his arm, checked the way it flexed. "Nah. Sum air vill do it good." He tucked the arm back into its sling. "Hy catch a rabbit earlier, but Hy dun think we can cook it. Hyu okay vith that?"

Sorin grimaced. "Well. I'll have to be. It's not like I can go very far on half a sandwich every two days."

"Hah. Jah, dere is dat."

As Velimir skinned the rabbit, Sorin stretched his abused body as much as he could. Bruises and muscle aches, quite a few scrapes, some he could not for the life of him figure out where he'd got them. His scalp wound was tender but not bleeding, and only really hurt if he prodded it. He didn't want to move anywhere unless it included a hot bath, but...

Ah well, they were going to be traveling high on rocky slopes; difficult terrain, but at least it wasn't as if they would have to deal with those clumsy lava clanks up there. That was something.

\--

Sorin was right about the stone clanks they'd encountered being unable to follow them. Unfortunately he'd forgotten they were running from a Spark, and Sparks on a whole tended to take "your creation cannot actually do this" as a challenge.

" _Do **not** move_ ," Velimir breathed at him. Sorin wasn't about to. He'd stopped in the middle of climbing a rock crested with a raspberry bush. His bent knee was starting to buckle from the strain of holding up his whole weight; he finished watching the spider-shaped stone clank climb ponderously up the little path to hide higher on the slope before he slowly allowed himself to get back down to his previous step.

The clank was carrying two lava cannons on its belly. They seemed to rotate some. Up there amongst the bare rocks yet another rock seemed to shift a little in position.

Looked like they'd arrived a _little_ early to their ambush.

"Race through?" Velimir whispered, making a little moue.

He looked disappointed that there wouldn't be a fight. Heh. Sorin's heart had sped up seeing the clanks but it calmed to almost its normal speed watching him. So far their track record was pretty okay.

"They'll chase us anyways."

That, and know where they went, and call ahead to other patrols probably, and...

And down there in the valley there was a road almost lost in the trees, and for a second he thought he saw someone move.

When he looked back at Velimir, the Jäger was grinning with all his teeth.

"Betcha we go much faster vith something vith vheels."

Sorin swallowed an incredulous laugh. "No bet." It was actually tempting, too. "You're going to make me a highwayman at this rate."

Velimir looked regretful. "Highway robbery is verra frowned upon by der Baron."

"But you'd be robbing them for the greater good," Sorin intoned piously.

Velimir sighed at him, and caught his wrist. "Sveetling, is bad place to make me want to kiss hyu vith so much tongue." Then he kissed him anyways.

Five seconds later he was dragging him, low to the ground, down a fairly perilous crack between rocks that a rivulet ran through.

"At least Hy got in sum robbery practice with Master Nero. Should not be _that_ rusty."

Sorin groaned under his breath.

It took them about fifteen minutes to climb down while keeping out of sight, and then they were under the leafy trees, where there were also bushes to block angles of sight. The troop transports that had brought in the clanks were parked a little way off the road -- ponderous things that looked like giant beetles, but wheeled, at least. No matter how Sparks liked their other forms of locomotion, when they had to lose the whimsy and be practical, they went with wheels.

There were two stone spiders standing guard with them. People were still chattering; they weren't expecting them quite yet, or they assumed they'd gone another route and this ambush wouldn't see a thing...

"Hy go distract dem. Hyu schteal one of those."

\-- Oh. Urh. "But I don't know how to--"

Velimir closed a hand on his elbow, met his eyes. "Hyu is a schmott boy. Figure it out."

He was gone in the next second, darting between the trees to go around; Sorin lost him. Heart trying to crawl up his throat, he pulled his biggest tongs out of his satchel and sneaked closer. He was aware of every single leaf he rustled, every twig he stepped on. He moved slow, so the pattern wouldn't sound like steps, but his skin was crawling, expecting to be seen every second he advanced.

The farthest transport was locked up, big padlock and mooring chains fit to hold a bull, but the one after that...

"I knew I should have insisted!"

... The one after that wasn't locked because there were still people inside. Sorin swallowed.

"Just one more complete maintenance check, Mistress, just _one_! But no!"

A dull thud, a faint ow. A woman snorted, voice scratchy. "Yeah, break your toes, go ahead. It's not starting and that's it. Let's go see the commander."

Oh Lord. Any time now. What was he going to do, his mind was blank, he hadn't made a plan -- something jingled. Keys.

They were going to lock the transport when they went.

The woman stepped out of the transport -- grizzled, decked in old leather, eyes hidden behind thick goggles -- and he swung without thought, caught her under the ribs with all the strength of his hammer-wielding days and the weight of a solid metal tool.

Something cracked. She folded over with a very quiet wheeze.

The man behind her yelled something -- alert, alarm, help, all of the above, none of the above. Sorin stepped up on the ramp and swung again -- arms held out to grab his arms, stop his weapon, but he wrenched it free and there was an opening and he took it.

At the last second he went for the jaw instead of the temple.

He stood there, panting, staring down at the man at his feet and the ruined, gushing mess of his face, and the choked bursts of screams and the curling up, and.

He could have killed him.

Skulls were so fragile when you were used to anvils. He'd always known, he'd always -- he hadn't, not really. He.

He grabbed the keys, caught the man by the armpits, and dragged him down the ramp. The woman was trying to get up. He lifted his tongs.

"Stay down."

She gave a very faint nod, eyes on his face. He wasn't even sure what face he was making. He turned and hurried to the cabin.

The rest of the camp was a roaring mess. A tree was on fire, several bushes. The clanks were -- they aimed so much better, so much _faster_ , and if Velimir had needed to protect Sorin they would both have died.

He fiddled with the levers, couldn't figure it out -- he'd never driven anything but a team of oxen the once, and they pretty much drove themselves from knowing the path so well. The controls were always different from machine to machine anyway -- and then Velimir went flying across the road and hit a rock full force, and he just. He just grabbed the closest lever, pressed a button, tilted it ahead. The transport shuddered, went in a half-circle. Okay. That was something. Now if he turned his -- okay, no, he didn't want to go backwards, not backwards oh hell, what if he ran over the --

Forward. Okay. And this one stick -- okay. Now he was even going in a straight line. Straight-ish.

He throttled them both together and the transport roared ahead.

It bounced on some rocks; the wind got in his eyes through the opening in the front. Over there in the woods Velimir was dodging a jet of lava just in time to get whacked in the face by a stone limb. Sorin gritted his teeth and put more speed in.

Two spiders -- a third spider racing down the slope (a fourth spider _wrecking_ on the slope, who cared) -- and one of them was turning to him and raising those cannons --

He braked as hard as he could, on one side only. The world whirled sickeningly.

Something went clang, metal screeching, stone splintering. He fought the control -- no, not that way -- jammed, no, wait, _there_. No fire yet. No fire yet.

One spider wobbled, fell, several legs crushed. They were armored all over, those, no convenient openings for Velimir to jump onto and hit the driver, but when Sorin had braked so hard, the curled-up, nonfunctioning one had shot out of the open back of the transport like a boulder out of a giant slingshot.

He raced to where the Jäger sprawled on the ground, almost under the second clank, raced the third clank crashing down the slope like an avalanche. Velimir wasn't moving, wasn't --

He rammed the second clank's legs. Things flew, things crumpled, he was thrown into the controls so hard his breath wouldn't come out and the stone spider was slowly toppling onto his roof, no, fuck it. He throttled the control again, snaked right and then left, and the transport coughed, rattled, shot free.

Velimir. He braked, almost ran him over (oh Baal's Hell was it _almost_ ,) reached for the door --

A fist hit the side of the transport. Thump. He craned his head, saw the Jäger crawl up the ramp, crash on the floor like a felled tree.

He hit the gas.

He almost ran over the troop's commander or something. At this point he did not actually mind. If anyone fired lava at them, it missed.

The road was empty. He could swerve and wobble as much as he wanted. He focused on getting them the hell away from there.

\--

Took him a long, long time to stop shaking, to think about stopping the transport for a while. Whenever there was a stretch of straight road he would crane his neck and check on Velimir. He didn't like that he was still dragging the unloading ramp, that the back was wide open. (What if he hit a pothole and Velimir rolled out?)

He couldn't even see him breathing.

A half-hour in, Velimir rolled onto his side. Ten minutes later Sorin's next check found him curled up with his back to one of the sides of the transport, a hand gripping the brim of his hat, keeping it lowered firmly across his face.

He breathed maybe a little easier after that.

The front of the transport was dented so hard in places Sorin was surprised it still handled as well as it did. Possibly all the controls and motors were underneath. One of the creases came almost to his knee, and he kept bumping into it when he shifted in his seat. He was lucky there had been no windshield, even despite having to squint against the wind, having his eyes watering so much, because a face full of glass wouldn't have been any better.

The sun was rising toward noon. It was a nice day. Crisp air coming down the mountains, but the sky was very blue.

"Hy gotta haff mine pee break," Velimir told him woozily through the grate. Sorin almost swerved them off a little cliff.

Alive. Aware. Moving. He didn't close his eyes and breathe, because they were in the middle of a fairly sinuous part of the road that hugged the side of this particular mountain. He just kept his eyes on the road and breathed instead.

"Surprised you didn't try to pee out of the back."

"Did," the Jäger replied plaintively. "Ken't hold on to the side und aim mine prick both, und Hy almost fell right out not holding on."

Red fire. Would Sorin have noticed if he'd fallen out? Probably not for another twenty minutes, and in the meantime he might well have rolled over the cliff. Blast it.

"I'm stopping as soon as restarting won't send us toppling overboard," he said.

"Hm?"

"This thing has a bit of a kick on starting," he started to explain, but Velimir just winced at him, confused, eyes squinty, so he gave up. "How bad is your head?"

"Hy'm not letting you look."

Accent mostly dropped, even. So... Pretty bad. He was aware, he was talking, he was even mostly logical, and if his nerves could grow back Sorin was almost sure his brain could fix itself with time, but obviously that wouldn't be happening straight away.

"Another five minutes," he said, voice gentling. Velimir nodded wordlessly and sank to the floor, fingers wound through the grate.

He found a good stopping point another five or six turns in, a deep recess into the cliff with slopes encasing them on both sides, cutting off most of the view. There were no trees, mostly thorn bushes, and enough space to restart the transport without shooting overboard, if it deigned to restart. Sorin parked and climbed out.

It involved kicking the door out of its frame, because it was well and truly stuck, but like hell he was letting it stop him at that point.

He went around the truck, finding Velimir already wobbling his way down the ramp. The Jäger seemed relatively steady on flat ground; Sorin watched him, but didn't follow. If he could do his business without his hand being held, that'd be good for both of their prides. Still keeping track of him, Sorin went to check out the bushes for edible berries.

He found a little stream -- not a surprise, from the greenery springing around it -- and crouched and drank his fill from his cupped hands. The water was snowmelt-cold, almost painful on his fingers but perfect down his throat.

Velimir joined him at a wobble and almost took a header into the water. Sorin grabbed his arm to stop him, until he realized it was deliberate. The Jäger splashed his own face vigorously and rubbed it, before even drinking. Half of his face was pretty much purplish-brown. Sorin wondered how bad it had been a hour ago.

"Feeling better?"

"Some. Hrngh. Ooh, berries."

They sat on a rock and ate berries. When the pouch Sorin had made of the bottom of his shirt was empty they got up and checked the bushes for more. Sorin found a nest -- some small bird, the eggs were tiny -- and let Velimir have three of them. He slurped up the contents of the fourth. Not a lot of protein, but it was still something. Knock on wood that he didn't get sick from eating it raw.

He went back to the transport to check it for anything useful. He found maintenance kits, mostly, nothing edible, and no bottle he wanted to empty of its oil and put drinking water into. Why couldn't the spider drivers come with their snacks and conveniently leave them behind? Unfair.

And that stupid ramp. Hrrmgh. Thankfully it wasn't hard, closing it; just a matter of turning a winch and locking the chain. It grated a little, but the roof wasn't twisted enough out of true to prevent it.

Oh, right. "You want to ride with me in front, or sleep in the back?" he called out to Velimir.

"Hy think Hy sleep enough." Velimir yawned, jaw opening a bit too wide to seem natural. "Can Hy drive?"

Sorin snorted. "Haha, no. Come on, then, I don't want to stop that long yet. Who knows when they'll catch up."

Velimir dragged his hooves to the cabin and climbed in, claws planted in the wooden seat to haul his weight up. Sorin followed, closed the door; the door didn't stay closed. He decided that too bad, he had no rope to tie it with so it may as well flap away.

It took him a few minutes to remember how to start the vehicle.

The transport jerked ahead and in a half-circle. Sorin brought it back under control and started driving down the winding road again.

It only took him five minutes to notice Velimir's tense shoulders and the way he cringed subtly before each hairpin turn.

"So uh, do hyu think Hy could try de driving thing maybe."

"Do you know how to drive this?"

"Doesn't look hard--"

"Hah! Denied."

Velimir sank into his seat, pulling the hat low on his face. "Sveetie -- hhhg _cliff!_ "

Sorin rolled his eyes. Drama queen. Sorin didn't second-guess every step he took when he ran in the woods with Sorin on his back, no matter how close to tree trunks and wild beasts they got, did he? And Velimir got them a lot closer to tree trunks and wild beasts. Inches away, sometimes. Granted, the transport was pretty huge, but still. "I've got it under control."

"Ken hyu haff it under control _slower_?"

Sorin breathed through his nose. "It doesn't _go_ slower. Or if it does I haven't figured it out." Velimir was making him stressed out about driving again. "It's _fine_ , I've got it under control. I just need to concentrate, you know, anticipate the --"

"Ken Hy be sick."

"I've got it under control, if you _stop distracting me_."

Velimir didn't say another word until they were back on somewhat flatter terrain, some thirty minutes later. When Sorin risked a glance off the road to check on him, he found him asleep, wedged in the corner. He kept driving.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the porn chapter w00t w00t.
> 
> A good half of the chapter is non-porn stuff so you can just stop reading when they start kissing if graphic sex isn't your thing.

By the middle of the afternoon Sorin's seat had started feeling a bit too warm to be natural under him; Velimir was squirming and grunting with displeasure in his sleep. Considering the seats were solid wood, that was a bit worrisome. Sorin eyed the needles and quadrants but none of them told him anything he understood.

Maybe it needed to cool down. Or be refueled. Or both. The trees were tall and dark in this valley, so he found a flattish place between the trees he thought they could fit through and swerved the transport until they were well out of sight of the road. (He only crushed one bush, so hopefully it wouldn't be too noticeable.) Then he parked and nudged the Jäger awake.

Velimir jerked upright so fast he knocked his head into the door frame. Sorin winced.

"Did you just seriously make your concussion worse?"

"Oof. Mebbe." He squinted through the window. "Ve stopped?"

"Gotta let the engine cool down." Sorin stretched in his seat, winced as his back cracked. His shoulders were incredibly sore. "I've got to..."

He wasn't sure what he had to do. Check the engine, see what he was working with? That wouldn't enable him to fix or understand it if anything went wrong. Give him pieces to replicate and he could probably manage, with an anvil and a good furnace and maybe some molds for the fiddly bits, but putting it all together...

Look for food? Yeah, he still hadn't magically learned how to hunt weaponless, and he didn't trust the mushrooms much.

Maybe nap. Yeah. Maybe that. He wasn't sleepy, but who knew when he would next get the chance.

He wasn't sure if Velimir felt good enough to keep watch properly, though.

He went to piss against a tree, then opened the back to -- oh wow, toasty warm in there. Emphasis on toast. The metal box that ran like a bench alongside the grate was actually, honest to God red-hot in places. Goodness _fucking_ gracious. The casing was going to warp under its own weight pretty soon at this rate.

He put on his heavy leather gloves, and got his longest tongs, and manipulated the hatches open. A wave of dry heat slapped him across the face. He hurried to let the top hinge closed again. It felt like a foundry in there, and he knew from foundries.

"Wot? Did hyu find a lava cannon back dere?" Velimir inquired, turning to peer through the grate, and yelped a little when he touched it and found it burning-hot.

"I think," Sorin started, slow and mildly incredulous, "we've been sitting on a _lava engine_."

The Jäger paused. "But iz it about to erupt under our ass cheeks."

Sorin snorted, gave it a wary look. "I don't know, but I'd be happy if you got out of the cabin just in case. Probably it just needs to cool down, but that's going to take a while. At a look I'd say at least three hours."

Velimir shouldered his own door open (the whole thing fell out) and dropped to the ground. A few seconds later he was standing beside Sorin in the open back.

"Hm. Vell. Ve did come pretty far with it. It goes fast. Und dey vill haff to cool down their own too, probably..."

"We'll go slower walking away now than waiting for it?" Sorin summarized. Velimir grunted, nodded. His eyebrows were knit in displeasure.

"Hy vant to _move_ , but."

Sorin wasn't sure he trusted him to be healthy enough to start carrying a grown man around again, at any rate. "It's fine. I like driving better too. Better chances of meeting travelers."

"Mmh."

He stood there beside Sorin as Sorin cautiously cracked the casing open again to allow more heat to escape and propped it on his tongs, which was not the best solution but still better than holding it up with the strength of his extended arm.

"How hot?"

"Hot enough that you'd leave all the skin of your hand behind if you touched it," Sorin replied dryly. "So _please don't touch it_. I know that look. You're planning something and I'm not going to--"

"Hy haff de best idea!" Velimir exclaimed with a wide grin, and disappeared into the woods.

Sorin sighed heavily and went to sit on the ramp, where it was nicely warm but not hot enough to borderline burn him through his pants.

At least he seemed to be feeling better. Sorin sat there and thought about nothing in particular for a while, maybe fifteen, twenty minutes.

"Hy return!"

The Jäger was carrying a dead boar -- not full grown, a mere teenage boar, but a huge thing nonetheless. He dropped it at Sorin's feet -- almost _on_ his feet -- and started skinning it with great enthusiasm. More with his claws than with his boot knife.

Apparently he'd bled it while he was carrying it back. There was a trail of blood all down the side of his jacket. Sorin supposed it had already been ruined.

"That's a bit much for only two -- _oh_."

Velimir grinned up at him, and handed him the first set of steaks to go put on the metal top.

Sorin supposed that if it had cooled too much to cook them, a little more time on the road would fix it right up.

It hadn't.

It smelled delicious.

It was nice and dim under the huge trees, crepuscular almost despite it not being past four or five in the afternoon at the latest. In the truck they took turns flipping over the meat and eating their fill, for the first time in what felt to Sorin like a century. Or at least a week. The meat was tough under his teeth, but flavorful and deliciously filling.

"Wow. This is almost making everything be worth it."

Velimir chuckled at him over the handful of meat he was cramming between his bear trap teeth. "Ho?"

"Not really. But it does make me feel pretty reconciled to the whole thing, for now." He reclined against the still-warm wall and patted his stomach. "I'll probably change my mind again when I'm done digesting."

"Nah, dere's enough meat for another day at least."

"Pff."

He nibbled on a rib, eyes half-closed. It smelled so good. He wasn't hungry anymore -- how strange that was -- but he still wanted to sit here until his hair smelled like barbecue for the next decade.

Which was, granted, a little gross, but.

"Iz not de same vithout a real fire," Velimir said with a point of melancholy.

"Well, it isn't like the Viscountess can't guess we're still on the road, but at the same time having a smoke beacon up--"

Velimir pointed at the sky desultorily. In a gap between the leaves Sorin could see a plume of smoke in the distance.

"Charcoal mounds, Hy think. Hy seen like six or sevvun ov dem." He gave Sorin a hopeful look.

Sigh. "Okay, fine, just pick up a branch and put it in the engine," Sorin said, knowing the Jäger _actually would_. "Fair warning, it's going to catch a lot faster than you expect."

"Thenks for tellink me all about der lava," Velimir replied drolly. "Hy iz chust ein poor dumb Jäger from de schticks who haff nevur seen any ov dese newfangled melty rocks befur."

Sorin spluttered, and then chuckled, smiled at him, a bit embarrassed. "Okay, shut up, sorry. I'll help gather wood," he added as an apology.

"Good, cuz vit mine burnt arm Hy can either pick it up or carry it, not both." A pause. "Unless Hy bring back de whole tree."

They had a fire built on the ramp soon enough. They sat at the top of the slope, where the cooler air caressed their faces while the heat radiating from the engine kept their backs toasty warm.

"So what's the deal with your accent anyway?" Sorin asked as he watched Velimir poke at the fire with a stick. "Do all Jäger put it on to confuse people or what?"

Velimir sneaked him a narrow-eyed, play-warning look. "Hy do not _put it on_."

"Uh huh. I think I'm going to stay with my theory that you guys enjoy making people stare dumbly and be all confused."

Velimir elbowed him in the side. "Iz not like dat at all!" He cleared his throat, like he was a bit embarrassed, which was an oddly cute expression on a man with a vigorous three day old beard and a maw full of pointy teeth and radioactive-glowy bits. "Hy iz just pretty young, as Jägerkin go."

"Oh." Wow. It hadn't even occurred to Sorin to wonder. Velimir just looked oddly ageless.

"De odderz have de heavier accent because dey iz older. Is how they talk in their time! Vhen Hy stay vith them, mine accent goes heavy too, is all."

"Oh. Makes sense." A pause. And then he dared a wise, thoughtful nod. "And then you have fun going up and down the understandable scale because you're a jerk, right?"

Velimir shoved him, laughing. Sorin almost fell off the ramp.

"Hey, careful!" he grumped, like he'd never horsed around worse with friends back home. "I'm not as durable as your brothers."

He regretted the jest when he saw Velimir's expression fall a little. "Guess not."

"You, uh. You miss them, don't you."

Velimir shrugged, looking into the fire. "Of course. Ve iz pack. Not right to be alone."

Sorin sat back down -- maybe a little closer than he had been -- ducked his head, rubbed his gloved hand against the back of his neck. "Can I... Can I ask you about Jägers? In general."

"Hm."

Velimir gave him a long, thoughtful look. Did he trust Sorin that much? Did he _want_ to share? Sorin waited, breath held.

"One more. Den iz mine turn to ask nosy things."

"Why do..." He hesitated. "Do all of them feel like that? Is it part of the, the being a Jäger _thing_?"

"Mnh. Yes." A little shake of his head. "Only one who effer left, he waz wrong in his head. Urgh."

But did he leave because he was wrong, or was he seen as wrong because he left? Maybe the fealty programming hadn't taken.

If he said that to Velimir, he'd be lucky if the man talked to him even once for the rest of the trip. He'd heard it wasn't necessarily bad, anyway. Velimir had told him it had been his choice, which only corroborated the rumors. He seemed pretty content with it. Proud, even.

It did sound like he really, honestly cared for them, like family. So...

"How come you ended up alone in Vulkanburg? Special mission? Did you suspect--"

Velimir cleared his throat, looked away. "Nah. We voz due for inspection next week, doing other towns first." Another cough, and then a bright, embarrassed grin. "Hy get drunk und climb in de beer delivery truck, wake up on de road. Den Hy haff such a headache, Hy just go never mind, Hy vill catch up once Hy know where Hy iz, de driver vould fuss und scream und mine head hurts too much for dat schilliness, und Hy go back to sleep."

Sorin groaned loudly and clapped his forehead with both hands -- ow -- and tried not to laugh in sheer disbelief. "And then you were in town?"

"Und then Hy was in town, und de second dey see me people started screaming spy-stuff at me, which vas not in any vay suspicious. So Hy go looking." He shrugged.

"And then you found me and couldn't go back." Sorin bit his lip. He wasn't sure he wanted to ask how close to the town his friends were, how hard the choice had been. Velimir still had a duty to report the situation.

Then again, if the other town had been that close -- well. His friends would have been the closest Baron's troop, and a strong defense for the information Sorin had found. So... probably not.

That must have been some drinking binge.

A thought came to him and he frowned a little. "... Why are there even wild Jäger? Why didn't they come to Baron Wulfenbach with the rest of you guys? Do they -- do they gather in packs too?"

Velimir stared at him, startled by the topic change, and then... wrapped his arm around his knee, hugged it to his chest, rested his chin on it.

"...Velim-- Veli?"

"Dey ken't," he said abruptly, without looking. "Trios or pairs, or alone."

The way he played around with Sorin, talked to him, ribbed him, kept _touching_ him -- when Sorin was a basic human, a _townie_? Could be Velimir honestly liked him that much. Could be he just felt _that_ off, not having any of his people along for the trip. (Both at once would be good. Sorin wasn't going to assume Velimir meant _all_ of his affectionate behavior.)

He tried to imagine Velimir alone for longer than the span of a busy mission. From everything he'd said...

From the way he'd said it...

"You make it sound like a death sentence."

The fire threw gold and red highlights on Velimir's face, but suddenly he realized he could see the greenish glow of his flesh, too, and it wasn't even that dark.

"It iz. Slow one."

Oh. Sorin leaned in, eyebrows knitting in worry. "What did they _do_?"

Velimir whirled so fast he startled. " _Nothing!_ " His hand was thrown in the air, his bear trap teeth backlit by the hellish radiation glow of his mouth. "Iz _nothing_ like dat! Dey iz saving us all! Iz not _punishment_."

He sat back down, breathed out, rubbed at his bruised temple.

"Iz an _honor_. Und a death sentence. Hy ken't--"

Chewing on his lip, Sorin risked a cautious hand to his elbow; when it wasn't shrugged off he pressed harder, squeezed. ( _I'm here. You're not alone now._ Presumptuous. Better than nothing.)

"You don't have to tell me."

"Hy ken't do it. Not many ov us can. Iz, iz. _Alone_." He breathed in, squared his shoulders, straightened his back. It was like pure willpower, stuffing all that emotion back into a box. The control it denoted was impressive. Sorin felt -- oddly sad. Bittersweet. "De Masters need to know ve have not given up on them. Und we--"

 _We need to know it too_.

"I understand," Sorin said, but he didn't. Not really. That kind of loyalty...

The Heterodyne Boys had been gone for over ten years now. (They hadn't even liked the Jägers much, it was said. Had left them at home with all the other relics of the clan's evil past.)

Probably for a creature that could live for five hundred, that didn't mean much. But the Jägers had to know...

They were always going to come first, for Velimir. His masters and his brothers.

It ached in the pit of his stomach, shortened his breath. He picked up a little bit of meat and chewed on it half-heartedly, to give himself something to do with his hands, to keep from letting it all on his face.

Velimir was massaging his head like it still hurt. Sorin wondered if he still had that concussion.

"Sorry for bringing it up. I didn't know it'd be so..."

"Mnh." Velimir waved his hand in the air without looking at him, returned to massaging the back of his neck, the spots behind his ears. "Ve talk happier things now, jah?"

"Yeah. I still owe you a question. Uh, more like three questions." He cringed a little, mostly put on. Velimir cracked a minuscule smile.

"Hmm. Or a big one maybe, jah?"

"Blergh. Yeah, alright."

"It occurs to me that hy haff no idea vhy hyu was in de tunnel that time. Hy ask hyu once und hyu said 'just an accident', und hyu don't like at _all_ adventuring und spying like a _schneak_... Is it that hyu gave me a _big stinky lie?_ "

He raised his eyebrows, eyes narrowed in over-the-top suspicion. Sorin groaned, loudly. Any other time, he might have been honestly embarrassed. Right now? It was so much better than dwelling on the previous topic.

Besides, Velimir had given him something. He should, too.

"One thing first: I was _not_ adventuring. I like my life perfectly boring and ordinary, thank you."

The Jäger coughed into his fist, something that definitely clearly sounded like _liar_. Sorin magnanimously pretended he'd briefly gone deaf.

"I was in the tunnels because... I'm apprenticed to this very nice man who treats me like a son."

"Und he vos kidnapped!"

"--No. Definitely not."

"Poo."

Sorin glared a little. "Let me tell the story! Anyway, Master Iliescu has a very good reputation, but he -- well. His daughter disappeared two weeks ago, and he was. You know. Distraught." He sighed. "So he was distracted, and he made a mistake, and I didn't realize until curfew, and I didn't want to let him be shamed the next day when the whole locomotive he'd been paid pretty heftily for fell apart. Possibly on top of its new owner. It was just a small tweak!"

Velimir nodded, watching him patiently.

"So I sneaked out--"

"Und did _not_ get caught. Hy notice."

"... Okay, it might not have been the _first_ time I'd sneaked out." Velimir coughed pointedly again. Sorin glared. "Or the second or even the third _shut up_. Point was, I wasn't breaking curfew for a bad reason or anything, so why did it matter? So I went, and fixed the thing, and..."

"And?"

He bit his lips, rounded his shoulders. "I saw her. In the street, past curfew. His daughter, I mean."

"His daughter who haz been gone for two weeks."

"Yeah. Then she disappeared in that weird lava-flow tunnel I'd never seen before, and I visited a _lot_ of the town's tunnels when I was a kid. So I followed to see where she was going, and, well."

"Ahh," Velimir said, enlightened. "Fallen in loyalty with her Mistress, huh. Und now she sees nothing but der maniacal glow in her eyes. So sweet."

"It's not sweet! It's _creepy_!"

\-- Argh. Couldn't tell _him_ that. He wouldn't hear it.

"What was stopping her from stopping by her father's place to tell him? Or, alright, they _would_ have argued about it, they're both pretty stubborn, but she could have sent a _letter!_ She was still in town and everything." He huffed, nudged at a log with his toe to push it farther into the fire. "It really wasn't right to worry us all like that."

Velimir was nodding with the air of someone who was humoring the crazy-but-harmless person. Growling, Sorin shoved him. Velimir shoved back. Sorin's flailing hand caught a grip on his jacket, almost dragged it straight off his shoulders before the collar halted the distressed cloth's bid for freedom.

He was yanked back up a bit too hard, ended up nose to nose with the Jäger, under the shade of his ever-present hat.

"Hoy dere."

"Hey," Sorin whispered, and tried not to blush. He'd started to wonder if Velimir was still even really interested. If he was just... If growing an actual friendship between them meant he didn't need to flirt stupidly anymore.

From the heat gathering in his gaze Sorin had been the stupid one.

"Think de engine is cooled enough to go?" Velimir asked in a low, veiled voice. Sorin shivered.

"Uh. Maybe, yes -- wait, _no_ , I. It's still pretty warm."

A slow smile bloomed on Velimir's face. Sorin was caught all over again staring at the fey glow of his lips, where the skin was so thin and damp and new. "Better not risk it, huh."

Sorin's throat was dry. "Yeah. Better not."

The Jäger raised his injured arm, brushed his fingers down Sorin's cheek, under his jaw, down the line of his throat. Sorin only wondered if he could feel with that hand for a very short time, and then it was like all his thoughts had vanished, and his body was just--

He kissed Velimir first this time, mouth opening needy, hungry, made a little throaty noise of approval when he was kissed back, long and slow, explorative. He caught himself crawling into Veli's lap, a thigh thrown across Velimir's and his hands on the Jäger's shoulders -- and then again he realized mostly because Velimir was _stopping_ him, a hand on his hip to keep it from getting closer.

"Sorin, sveetie..."

He swallowed, leaned back a bare half-inch. "Yeah?"

"Hyu gotta tell me how far hyu see this going," Velimir said quietly against his lips.

Sorin burrowed into his neck. Swallowed.

(He smelled sweaty and smoky and male and _nice_. Not nice like flowers; nice like sweat, like male, like animal _yes, want_.)

"Far as you want."

There was a short pause where nothing happened during which he started to think he'd -- said something wrong, he didn't know -- and then Velimir _leaned back_ , no, no, no --

"Then we need to smother de fire und lock de transport." A short kiss to the corner of his jaw, a _bite_ \-- "... Before we get too busy."

Sorin's first "Oh" came out so quiet it was more breath than sound. "That's. Probably a good idea. Yeah."

He started to push away, stole another kiss -- nervous intensity, slightly off-center, too rough -- tore himself out of his lap. Somehow. Velimir's eyes on him were a more solid hold than his arms.

He was cold, he felt awkward, he felt -- he wasn't sure, no, _yes_ he was, it was a stupid decision that he was going to regret but he was just going to own it. He wanted it.

It would ache no matter what when Velimir left. Might as well get something good out of it first. Yeah.

Something like that.

He kicked the fire over the edge of the ramp, into damp, green grass, hopped off to stomp the embers out, head bowed, eyes on his feet. Fascinating sight. He'd gone hard with embarrassing swiftness, not fully there yet, but soon enough.

So needy and ignorant and --

Velimir wouldn't mind. Wouldn't care. He knew Sorin had never really -- he knew.

And the fire looked pretty dead now. He bent down and pulled out a few clumps of grass just in case, so the fire would have nothing to burn.

"Sorin," Velimir said, calm, patient, like he'd been with him from the start -- as if he'd always known they would end up here? Or maybe... "Hyu is all _tense_."

"I'm fine--"

"Don't _schmell_ fine." He sighed, shook his head, no, never mind. "Hy say hy vant hyu sure."

Sorin threw his hands in the air. " _I'm sure!_ I'm just also _nervous_. That happens."

"Ve can wait a bit longer, dat is fine. At worst Hy finish myself vith mine hands. No harm done."

Sorin's face burned. "Yeah, apart from the harm done to my pride, but hey."

"Hy iz not fucking your _pride_." A frown, and then another quiet sigh. It stung. Sorin was a tease and Velimir was resigned to it, what else was new. "Hy seen this before. People push it, no, Hy iz not afraid ov you, won't step back. Und then it goes all weird und wrong. No."

Sorin squared his shoulders and marched up the ramp, eyes narrow and jaw set. "Alright, you can stop telling me what I mean _right now_."

He grabbed the Jäger by the hips and yanked him until their bodies collided; Velimir went mostly out of surprise.

"Hoy--"

He blinked down at Sorin, eyes a little wide, an eyebrow arched, inviting an explanation. Sorin huffed, went on tiptoes to kiss his mouth.

"How much longer did you think my virtue was going to hold on, anyway," he asked, voice gone rough, awkward. "What did you think it was, Castle Heterodyne?"

A laugh burst out of Velimir's mouth. He leaned in, pressed his forehead to Sorin's to grin at him at almost point blank range. "Hoo. Not so impregnable den."

Sorin laughed with him, couldn't help it, even though he'd wanted to stay annoyed. "Do I have to open my gates myself and call out for burglars or what?"

"Sometimes der Kestle does that," Velimir mused. "Does not usually end up so well for de burglars--"

"The castle _what?_ What in _hell_ \-- no, you know what, I don't even care. If your hands aren't on my ass in two seconds I'm cutting them off at the wrist and putting them there myself."

Velimir laughed into his mouth and -- _finally_ \-- obeyed.

Their hips didn't line up, Velimir too high on his goat legs, but he bent down with a chuckle and slid his good hand all the way down Sorin's spine, squeezed -- a shocked thrill stabbed him right in the groin -- palmed his ass, slipped his fingers down the seat of his pants. Sorin groaned, rocked up against him, hands tightening bruise-hard on his hips and then sliding around to match him.

Gods above. That ass. He'd been watching it bounce around for _days_. He looked up to tell Velimir that, peevedly; Velimir swooped down, kissed him. Lifted him off the ground, until Sorin's arms went around his neck instead, until his thighs locked around the Jäger's hips. He tucked his feet against the back of Velimir's thighs, heel nudging the underside of his ass, and kissed him until he felt dizzy. That big hand gave him a last squeeze and let go, and he clung the way he was getting so used to.

Something metal made a ratcheting noise. Oh. Right. The chain. The ramp.

Clang. Safely locked in. Go away, monsters. He spared the barest of thoughts for the worry that the Viscountess' people might catch up to them, and then he didn't want to think it anymore and shoved it away. If he denied himself this again he was going to go mad.

He was pressed against an oddly warm wall, was kissed some more. Rocked against, slow and patient until he was growling, was winding his fingers in Velimir's hair and pulling, tugging here and there in frustration.

"Ahh, young tings," Velimir mused against his mouth. "So impatient."

Sorin bit him. Bit him and dug his fingers into the muscles of his back, his neck, squeezing and releasing and _clinging_ , pulling him closer, back to his mouth. (His fingers were scratched and bruised to hell and back but right now he barely felt it.)

"It's going to be -- very -- embarrassing -- if I blow in my pants," he said, teeth gritted, as Velimir ground up _just right_ against his erection.

"Hyu can if hyu want," the Jäger told him. "Hyu iz young enough, might vell go twice." He grinned brightly.

Sorin's head spun a little. "I'll probably die first." He bit his lip. "No, I -- at least not clothed, f-for shame."

"Yeah?"

"Put me down _right now_."

Velimir let him slip back down to the ground, growled back a little, wound his claws between his buttons. Sorin thought about being disrobed like that, with his claws, felt hot all over.

"Whoa, hey, no tearing off anything, I need to get dressed again afterwards." He regretfully batted his hands away, undid his own vest, unlaced his shirt.

"Aw."

"--And leave your arm in the sling, if you can."

"Huh. Guess iz gross." Velimir looked a little nonplussed.

Sorin headbutted him in the ribcage. "Iz not wanting to hurt you worse, stupid."

Velimir hummed to cover up a laugh, nuzzled his temple, no teasing to see here, just affectionate cuddles. "Leetle pain iz good for hyu."

Sorin leaned in and bit his collarbone, which was all he could reach without going on tiptoes.

"Yeow!"

They were wrestling somehow, sinking to the floor more or less gracefully, Sorin trying to straddle him so he could rub his knuckles on that _jerk's_ face and Velimir one-handed parrying his fists without even trying to grab them, looking supremely entertained. Sorin somehow caught his huge wrist, put all his weight on it, and knew he was being humored when it was slowly pushed to the floor.

"Oh no, Hy voz caught." The idiot batted his eyelashes at him. "Wot iz hyu going to do with me now."

Sorin straddled his waist, looked at him as thoughtfully as he could while so flushed. "Dunno, what's traditional in these cases?"

"Torture?"

"-- _Velimir_." He could see it had shot out entirely without thought, too. The Jäger pursed his lips, and then grinned hopefully up at him.

" _Sexy_ torture?"

He was ridiculous. Sorin laughed, and went about unbuttoning him. "I'm a bit short on shackles at the moment."

"Boo."

His uniform jacket was only good to be thrown in a fire by now -- liberally bloodstained, missing a sleeve and the upper half of its back -- but it must have looked smart on him before. Sorin helped him guide his hurt arm out of the sleeve hole, vest and then shirt, was glad when he did put the sling back on.

There were bruises on him but they looked a week old already, for all that Sorin could judge through the strange tint of his skin. There was one on his temple, dark and large, already three times smaller than he remembered it from this afternoon.

In a fit of bravery Sorin chucked his own vest and shirt off to the side, sat there shirtless for a second before he went for his own belt. The Jäger just watched him, eyes glowing in the dim light coming through the front grate.

He'd gone so far. He could keep going. He shuffled backwards -- stopped breathing when he felt a telltale bump under his ass -- shuffled farther, onto Velimir's thighs.

Okay. Belt. He could do belts. From the outside it was barely more complicated.

"Dis is de life," Velimir told him, a fatuous smile on his face. Sorin dug his fingers into his side to check for ticklishness.

"You lazy bastard."

"Mnh."

Velimir's good hand started caressing his thigh, his hip, squeezing through the cloth. Sorin opened the Jäger's pants and slipped a hand inside his underwear, knees tightening on Velimir's hips instinctively when he felt the warm, silky-soft shaft in his hand. Velimir sighed, rolled his hips under him.

Sorin fished his dick out, and promptly burst out laughing.

"Oh my _god_. Why did I not expect that. What on God's green earth, Veli!"

Under him Velimir had his lips pursed with all due seriousness, and his eyes sparkled with amusement.

"Dis is mine glowschtick," he informed Sorin solemnly.

" _I noticed oh my little baby narwhals_."

It glowed irradiated-green too. Strongest at the head, but pretty much all over -- the skin was so fine and soft. He ran his thumb up and down his length, biting his lip as he looked. It was... it was a pretty nice piece, for all that it did look a bit too much like an actual glowing mushroom when he tugged the foreskin down.

"I can't believe it actually glows. Where else..." He shook his head, at a loss of how to finish his sentence.

"Unless hyu wanna do an _inspekshun_ before hyu bugger me, hyu iz not going to see de rest."

Sorin groaned, slapped Velimir's stomach. Of course he was blushing like the world was on fire again. "Why would I -- why would I _look_ in there--"

"Oho." Velimir waggled his eyebrows. "Interested?"

"No!" He hesitated. Not about looking, he'd probably burst into actual flames if Velimir showed him. (He kind of _did_ want to look, deep down with all the very dirty, depraved thoughts he did not ever dwell on, but. Yes. He _would_ die.) "Do you, uh. Want me to?"

"Hm?"

He growled it, because it wouldn't come out without less push behind it. " _Bugger you_. Do you want me to?" He kind of, yes, he did want that. Maybe. Yes. Oh god, _yes, please_. Just...

Velimir sat up under him without apparent effort. Sorin watched the muscles of his abdomen tense under the skin.

He leaned in to kiss him and Sorin leaned into him, groaning in relief.

"Hyu have really nice shoulders," Velimir said quietly in his ear. Sorin grunted in embarrassment.

"I'd _better_. With the job I--"

"Sveetling. Do you want me to lead?"

He nodded, eyes closed tight, face pressed against Velimir's shoulder.

Velimir guided him down onto his back -- the floor was warm, like the outside of a banked forge. They were kissing as he pulled Sorin's pants off, smooth and without a single snag and Sorin wondered how many years of experience, if that was what came out of being a _young_ Jäger then -- mnh.

Two quick tugs and his feet were bare, his pants and underwear off him, and Velimir crawled back over him and it was all bare skin against him from thigh to chest.

They kissed; Velimir kissed his throat, nipped it as Sorin kneaded at his shoulders, his now completely healed back. Skin against skin, the weight of him pressing, pushing like an insistent cat...

"Do you want to?" Sorin offered quietly, knees parting under him. Velimir made a low growly sound against his neck, his big rough hand cupping the inside of Sorin's thigh and squeezing, sending a pulse of pleasure-need straight up to his crotch.

"Don't _tempt_ me."

Sorin wasn't sure if he'd mind if Velimir _was_ tempted. It was -- a bit scary, but.

Leaning on his elbow, Velimir spat into his hand, and then lined their erections together, started rocking against Sorin.

It felt good, warm and tight and a bit rough; the idea of the thing got to him even harder than the physical contact. He clung to Velimir's shoulders, thrust into his hand, against his length. There was just the one thing...

"Are you -- hngh -- are you going to--"

"Mnh?"

Sorin groaned. "To -- _keep that goddamned hat on_?"

Velimir almost reared back, let go of their erections to plant his good hand on the floor and glower down at him. "Hoy! No dissing of de hat. Hy take off de hat when Hy iz dead, und not before."

Then he dived down to plant a wet raspberry on Sorin's stomach. Sorin shrieked.

He batted at the hat, but he didn't make contact before his hand was pinned down to the floor. He squirmed to get out of the hold, went after the hat with his other hand, only for both his wrists to end up in Velimir's grip together somehow. He hadn't even seen him _move_.

"Dat vas _very_ naughty."

Velimir proceeded to trail raspberries and nibbles up and down his chest and ribs until Sorin was breathless and whimpering with laughter.

"I give! I give, surrender, stop, mercy--"

"Hy iz Jägerkin," Velimir purr-growled. " _Hy haff no mercy_."

But the next time his mouth touched his stomach it was a kiss, wet and toothy. He let go of Sorin's hands, let Sorin wind them around his shoulders, trace the muscles of his upper back, knead them.

He was making his way down. Sorin barely had time to anticipate it before he was capturing the head of Sorin's dick in his hot, wet mouth. He arched his spine off the floor, hands scrabbling for a handhold, something to dig his fingers into.

He'd been flagging a little from all the laughter and silliness; he wasn't now. He threw his head back, fighting not to moan and not succeeding.

He was going to go off early, he was, he _was_ , until Velimir let him go all of a sudden, all cold and damp but for the fingers around the base of him, and then he wailed. "Don't you _dare!_ "

"Hy dare a great many things," Velimir purred, and then straddled his hips and sank onto him.

He stopped moving the second the head of Sorin's dick had popped in (tight tight _tight_ ) and Sorin clawed mindlessly at his thighs with his stupidly blunt nails and tried to buck up, but the Jäger only rode the motion, hissing quietly.

Oh. Was Sorin hurting him? Oh -- crap. Okay. Okay, he could stop moving. He _could_. He pressed the small of his back against the floor again, hands tight enough on Velimir's legs to bruise.

He hadn't expected that, at all, even despite how much he'd wanted it. Shouldn't Velimir want to fuck him instead? He was older and in control and--

And he was still in control even now, of the depth and speed and everything, slowly sinking onto him, so tight it almost hurt.

"You -- you okay?" Sorin managed to gasp. "You didn't -- I could have, I--"

Velimir sank the rest of the way down on him and sat there, breathing maybe a little fast. He'd softened a little; he cupped himself, pumped his length, rocking tentatively on Sorin's dick.

"Dun haff any oil to --" a short breathy pause; "--make it easier on hyu. Hy vill not fuck hyu dry on hyu first time unless you like de pain a _lot_ more."

He leaned in to kiss Sorin's nose, smiled, small but toothy.

"That und Hy _really_ like it. So."

Sorin laughed, half because of relief. He just... hadn't been sure. How it happened, between men. Tavern jokes only went so far, and apparently half of them went the wrong way.

He wrapped his hand around Velimir's hand on his erection. (Velimir's hand was huge, not twice as wide as his but pretty close, and his dick was nowhere near as disproportionate.) They rocked together and he tried to hold back, tried to match the rhythm better but it was hard and he just, his body wanted more, he wanted more and it wasn't enough, and it was _maddening_.

He grabbed Velimir's hip, pushed, toes trying to dig through the floor. The Jäger grunted -- aw, come on, what now -- and blinked down at him. He looked... Brighter. The blue-green of his face more brown. (Blushing? Oh.)

Sorin was about to go crazy with this pace. "Roll over -- please, _fuck_ \--"

Velimir growled at him, drove himself down on him hard. Sorin braced his heels and heaved. The Jäger tried to catch himself with his injured hand, was fouled by the sling, almost faceplanted on Sorin's chest. Sorin tried to roll them over, only partially succeeded.

"Rrrrgh." Velimir bit his collarbone, hooked a heel behind his thigh, and finished rolling them over, though he was staring at Sorin like a challenge, frustrated. "Demanding brat."

"Old man," Sorin replied very intelligently as he fumbled to set his knees without slipping out any more than he had.

Velimir _was_ letting him. He grinned down.

Velimir's long, strange legs went around his waist, locking together over his hips; he pulled him in.

Sorin bit him back, panting against his chest as he fucked him. His hands roamed blindly, groping and kneading deep, fingertips digging in the way that made Velimir grunt and push into his hold. Velimir didn't try to slow him down, didn't tell him to be more gentle, and he was so close and it felt so good and fierce and bright --

He'd planned -- vaguely -- to stop, to slow down, any second now. His orgasm took him by surprise, a rush of pleasure that drove him to thrust deep and hard and stay there, as deep as he could, as Velimir clenched all around him.

It didn't take long before overstimulation turned into something that almost hurt, and he pulled out, shuddering all over.

Velimir was still hard, his shaft bobbing against his flat belly, in a nest of pale sea-foam curls.

"Aw, hell. Sorry." Sorin tried to pull free; Velimir's legs were still locked around him. "Sorry, I'll --"

God, he was tired. Tired and sore in every muscle of his back and sweaty all over; he wanted to nap in the heat of the transport's back, but he'd be so ashamed if he left Velimir like that and--

And a huge hand was pressing against his mouth.

"If hyu iz not kissink me in two seconds, Hy iz going to cry."

He was trying not to laugh, the utter _jerk_.

Sorin bit his hand, of course.

"Yeowch. Mine leetle wildcat. Leetle lava cannon. Pew, pew--"

"I'll _make_ you cry," Sorin promised grimly, and toppled onto his chest to kiss him.

He could feel Velimir's erection trapped between their bodies. He ground down on it, a bit awkward now that desire wasn't keeping the tempo for him, but determined.

Velimir purred into his mouth, groaned like it was all according to plan, and Sorin kissed him harder, with more teeth, which only got him two hands -- damn it, the sling! -- sliding down his back to grab him by the ass cheeks.

(One hand grabbed a lot more than the other one. He hoped the big idiot wasn't hurting himself.)

"Try for a second one?" Velimir asked him as he squeezed at his ass. Sorin shook his head. (What time was it? Was the engine cool enough to go now? He wanted to roll around all afternoon and late into evening but they couldn't, he couldn't.)

"I'm good. Can I do something?" he asked, and then yawned a little bit, which took him completely by surprise. "Um. Whoops."

"Hy iz _putting you to sleep_ , Hy see."

"No! No, it's good, it's nice, it's better than nice, I want to do it again -- a lot -- are you teasing me again."

His eyes were sparkling, human brown and familiar-friendly, only with glowing lids that looked a bit like he had used ground uranium for eye powder . "Better question iz, vhen am Hy not?"

Sorin nipped at the tip of his nose, at the odd little scales along the bridge. They felt more like hard leather than like fish scales or nails against his lips, and bowed a little under his teeth. Velimir growled back, a low, oddly laid-back, rolling sound.

He rolled them over again, pushed Sorin onto his back and then onto his other side. Sorin went with it, with maybe a little trepidation, breath hitching when Velimir cuddled up against his back, thighs pressed to the back of his thighs, his hard dick nestled against Sorin's ass.

He twisted an arm backward so he could touch Velimir's waist, hold on. "Are you going to --"

Velimir snorted against the back of his neck. "Put it in? Dere is so much more to do than just that."

He pushed a knee between Sorin's legs, guided his dick between his thighs, all snug and warm.

"Dere, sveethot -- hyu just hold me there... Doing good..."

He whispered to Sorin, little meaningless words and little encouragements, so careful and tender and nice Sorin wanted to burrow in his arms and never come out, if he could have. He wanted to sleep here and just, just...

Yes. Strong arms around him, calluses against his skin -- someone just as big as he was, bigger. The scent of him, the stubble against his skin, the hard shaft and the easy strength and...

It might feel physically better -- he was too inexperienced to tell, and it hadn't been... it had been good, not _perfect_. He was never going to feel this _right_ with a woman.

Maybe it would still feel okay.

Maybe.

He closed his eyes and rocked with him, his head resting in the crook of Velimir's elbow, did nothing but run his hand up and down his bunching, straining thigh and feel him and his hand closing on Sorin's hips and his thrusts, his weight, the silky skin of his dick against the fuzz between Sorin's inner thighs.

Velimir spilled on his skin, forehead pressed to his spine, panting, and Sorin caressed his hand and carefully thought of nothing much.

It felt nice in here with him, too warm now but nice.

Outside the sun was approaching the horizon and it was dim under the trees, outside the Viscountess approached, outside was ...

"Urgh. Can't my brain shut up for ten minutes after sex, honestly. Even five. That'd be nice." Sighing, he turned in Velimir's arms, hugged him back.

"Mnh." Velimir slid a hand down his spine. "Hyu learn vhen it's useful to vorry or not vith time, Hy guess."

Sigh. "Yeah, I think that's just you guys."

He cuddled another five minutes, selfishly, before the itch under his skin grew too much to be ignored and he had to sit up and clean himself and get dressed.

Velimir watched him, sitting cross-legged on the floor on his bare ass and chewing contentedly on a chunk of barely-grilled meat.

"I'm opening the back," Sorin informed him, stealing little glances because _he was allowed now_. (Wow.) "Gotta get some air flow going in here if we want it to cool down before tomorrow...?" Velimir shrugged, and swallowed another mouthful.

When the giant weasel attacked, Velimir had to fight it in the nude but for his hat. Sorin thought he minded more than Velimir did.


	8. Chapter 8

Their luck held all evening, and all night, and into the morning. They drove in shifts -- Sorin had found it preferable to be asleep in the back when Velimir drove, for all that the jerk had complained about _his_ driving, but it did help that he could see a little better in the dark than Sorin did.

It was about ten on a drizzly, quiet morning and the lava engine was thrumming along nicely with Velimir's snoring when they ran into the blockade.

Sorin braked hard, threw the transport into reverse -- half-spin on the rain-wet road -- and a half-dozen spider clanks burst out of the trees, cannons ready. He was going to burn.

Maybe he could ram one first.

" _Give **up** , Sorin!_"

His hands gripped the brake closed. The transport made an unpleasant crumpled-metal noise.

Rozalia stood, braced on the shoulder of one of the spider clank drivers, heavy black braid draped over her shoulder so she could clench her fist on it. He didn't need to be close to know she was glaring at him.

" _You're caught, so just give up and--_ "

He was so monumentally fed up with her right now, with the whole situation really.

"Are you damn well _dreaming?!_ " he yelled back, and revved the engine, or whatever it was that made the temperature jump five degrees in two seconds and the whole frame tremble with barely leashed power. God, he was going to ram _her_ clank, and no doubt she would barely get hurt -- maybe she'd fall out and sprain her wrist -- but if he had to get burned to death so close to escape he was damn well going to make her look at his carbonized corpse while he was at it.

" _I've got your **mother** with me!_ "

\--Oh.

Rozalia pulled on someone's arm in the back, tried to make them get up, didn't manage. The clank's driver leaned obligingly to the side to free the view.

It was his mother, graying hair in barely tamed curls, a heavy chignon. Gagged.

Oh, hellfire and damnation.

What the hell had they gone after the letter for then, why had he even worried it would betray him, when Rozalia could have -- had -- done just that.

He was vaguely aware that Velimir wasn't in the seat beside him any longer, wasn't aware of when he'd left -- it didn't matter right now. The only thing that did was how angry he was, suddenly.

"Did you drag my mother into this thrice-damned disaster, you asshole?! What the bloody hell for?!"

Rozalia actually rolled her eyes at him. He gritted his teeth. The only reason he didn't rush right at her clank was that his mother was right beside her, and tied up to boot; she'd have no way of holding herself up. " _Where's the Jäger, Sorin? I know there's no way you ditched him!_ "

Hell. Okay. Gain time. He could do that. "He's half-unconscious in the back, and I can't believe you'd bring my mother into this, no, seriously, explain that to me!"

" _Oh, please, it's not like I've hurt her yet! I was perfectly happy to leave her alone, but it's not like you left us a lot of better ways to make you listen, mister good, sensible rules are for other people!_ " She tossed her head, braid swinging.

"Hoy," Velimir muttered from the shadows outside the transport, "Hyu did not say she vos an ex-girlfriend!"

"She's _not_ an ex-girlfriend!" Sorin yelled back.

Um. Okay, now they were all staring at him weird.

"No?" Velimir replied, amused. Rozalia was sputtering.

Why was this his life. He wanted a refund. "There was _some_ talk of getting us engaged so I'd get the forge, only she broke it off. _You_ broke it off, okay?!"

Velimir was still here, was chatting instead of going around disabling clanks. Couldn't he cross the... very empty space all around without being seen... Cripes, of course he couldn't. Delay, delay --

He could see her fisting her hands from here. He had no doubt that if they'd been in arm's reach she would have punched him in the face. " _You thought I'd marry someone who treated me like an adorable **kitten** instead of a **woman?!**_ "

The spider driver coughed in her hand, nudged her with an elbow; Rozalia breathed in hard, calmed herself down. Damn, Sorin didn't want that.

"Well," she said, not yelling anymore, though he could still hear her well enough; "the Mistress doesn't treat me like a _kid sister_. And she wants you, so that's what she'll get. She was even generous enough that she promised me your family wouldn't have to pay for your stupid, and you'd just go to _jail_ , so really, this is as good as you'll get!"

Sorin was pretty sure she believed it wholeheartedly, too. But he remembered the aqueduct, and all the clanks the Viscountess had thrown at them and lost, only to throw _more_.

She could bury the cave again, easy. Fill it, make it so it had never existed.

As long as he was alive he could be found, he could talk.

He was sure the Viscountess would be very sorry when she told Rozalia it had been _necessary_ , or he had _tried to escape_ , or.

\--Wait a minute. _Not_ like a kid sister? How did --

"She's _three times your age!_ " he -- maybe -- kind of shrieked.

From the shadow of the transport Velimir coughed. "Hy iz like seven or eight times hyurs," he muttered. Sorin made a choked-off, growling sound in his throat.

"Oh god, shut up or I'll drive over you, _shut up_."

Rozalia had gone pink and he was aware that the clank drivers were -- looking... a little distracted?

Yeah, that had totally been his plan from the start. Yep.

"Why am I even bothering to talk about this?!" Rozalia yelled. "This has nothing to do with anything! This is about you snooping in _restricted areas_ when you should have been indoors _following the law!_ "

"It's a stupid law!"

He could see her gritting her teeth from here. "Shut up and surrender _right now_."

"Let me think about that..." He throttled the engine. "Nope."

Velimir needed to get closer. Okay. Sorin could give him that.

He threw the transport forward with all the speed it could gather in one burst. His head snapped back; he forced it down, chin tucked in, mulish.

He could hear Velimir yelling a cheerful war cry from the side of the transport, where he was no doubt hanging on somehow. Okay. Good enough.

Lava came at them. He swerved. Spiders were falling back, but not quite fast enough in reverse when their drivers were trying to keep an eye on him. Good. He had to close in.

The difference between Sorin's driving and a well-trained transport driver's was, he didn't care if he wrecked it. He didn't care if hairpin turns and sudden reverses made the frame groan and sing with stress, if his manhandling made the wheels stutter and jerk strangely -- it was good. Unpredictable.

It was probably the only reason he wasn't roasted in the first five seconds, despite the sheer size of the transport.

Spider clanks started to go down to the side of him. He'd lost Velimir, the Jäger busy cutting a swath through the herd. That was fine. He was in a good position to arrow straight for Rozalia and his mother, and Rozalia's hand was still on the gunner's arm, mouth open like she was trying to talk the woman into not strafing him down.

The gun under the spider swiveled up and he swerved, and then it was scorching hot in the cab until his speed brought fresher air in. He could hear the roof dripping molten metal, splattering and sizzling (awgh, and that stink was the rest of their boar being charred black.)

The spider danced aside, dodging him, and he braked hard on one side to bring the back of the transport whirling against its legs. He had to grip the controls hard not to be flung out of the cab, his ass sliding on the wooden seat. (The door on Velimir's side was missing, it would be so easy to fall out.)

Stopped. He shook his head, dizzy, craned his neck even as he started the transport moving again. He'd felt an impact, but nothing huge --

There it was. Limping, but not down. Skittering away. His mother was staring at him. He couldn't read her face, that stupid gag was in the way; Rozalia had fallen into a crouch and was clinging to the gunner's seat. She was yelling something.

Yeah, he still wasn't listening. He couldn't have if he'd tried, with the blood pounding in his ears until he was deaf to everything but the explosions.

The air was so hot against his back. If the lava that had hit the roof melted the engine's casing his death would probably be quick. Not painless, but you couldn't have everything.

He started forward again.

" _Sorin!_ "

Velimir. Yelling. He braked. (So hard he tipped forward and into the console, oof; the back of the transport briefly left the ground and thumped back down)

There was a mountain on the side of the road (there were mountains everywhere) and there was lava flowing down it, but in arches, in _bridges_. Red and gold and darkening in _seconds_ , almost no splash, the bridge growing new legs and then cooling there, contained, encased in -- in rock -- gleaming-wet, Spark stuff, it wasn't natural, none of it was.

At the apex of the bridge there was a gold-painted spider clank, bigger than any of the others. One he remembered.

" _Sorin!_ " his mother yelled, and his head jerked back. She'd rubbed the gag off, she was standing, though Rozalia tried to drag her back down, though the clank wobbled, unbalanced. " _Sorin, **go!** The Baron--_ "

The bridge's molten legs touched down between him and his mother's clank. No, no --

" ** _Go!_** "

He went, eyes burning with smoke, he turned around with the transport gritting out protests, clanging -- gears loose somewhere, but he was still moving. He could barely see, barely breathe (not crying, no, not, thwarted rage and unfairness and _smoke_.)

Where was Velimir? He couldn't drive off without -- there, he needed -- the Jäger had abandoned his pile of victims, was running toward him, waving his arms--

\--not this way? Not --

The ground trembled and lava flowed in a spreading, smoking puddle on the wet ground and he swerved -- something broke off with a clang -- (he was abandoning his mother) -- he went --

It was very hot on his face, in his nose, it was hot and red, and then it was black.

Then it was nothing much.

\--

He woke up. It hurt.

He made a noise.

Things went floaty, dragged him away.

\--

He woke up. Maybe.

Floaty. Nausea. It was dark.

Oh. Closed eyes. He could fix that. He could...

\--

He woke up. It didn't hurt. Didn't feel like much. Maybe he was a cloud now. Maybe he was a river.

Velimir floating down the river, lazily sprawled on a trunk. He couldn't swim. Mmh.

Sorin's mother had tried to teach him, when he was a child. He wasn't good at it. Ludy was. Ludy was good at everything like that. She was going to be an adventuress. Sorin needed to get married because it sure wasn't from her that grandchildren would come.

"... awake?"

Of course he was. Did rivers ever sleep?

"...Interesting philosophical question, but... dosage..."

Maybe he was a cloud. Clouds were kind of pre-rivers in a way, if he remembered his schooling well... cycle of water, river to the sea, racing, running, you couldn't hold a river you could try but it'd escape, he'd escape. Get to the Baron. Tell him.

Tell him...

\--

It hurt but he couldn't let the Viscountess know. He woke up teeth clenched, throat locked. No sound. No complaint.

He knew from burns.

It was only really bad when it didn't hurt. If so, he was pretty okay.

Mostly okay.

It hurt.

He opened his eyes to his cell. The ceiling was brushed steel arches, far away, not a black stone dungeon.

There was a bag with fluid in it on a stick at the corner of his vision. He didn't want to turn his head but he had to. (He regretted it, but not enough to stop.)

Glowing things. Little square lights. Brass dials. A long sheet of paper unrolled slowly into a basket underneath. Some kind of wave-spiky pattern on it, endlessly repeating.

The back of his neck hurt. A bit on his face, too, barely noticeable against the screaming of his shoulder, his chest.

His arm also hurt, but differently. When he looked down he saw a cast on his wrist. Well then.

There was a clean, crisp white sheet on him.

He was in a hospital gown.

It was nothing like the town hospital's.

"Avake den?"

He flinched when he tried to turn too fast to the other side, to the voice -- accent -- Veli? but no, not the right voice, the right --

There was a row of white, clean beds. A Jäger Sorin didn't know reclined on one four beds down. He was furry, red. Not in uniform; in his undershirt, not a gown, both (human-shaped) legs stretched out before him and looking badly bruised at the tibias.

Wulfenbach's winged tower sigil on his hat. Oh.

"Hoy dere." He grinned, goofy-harmless to offset the teeth.

"Where's Veli?" Sorin asked, because he couldn't think of anything else. The Jäger's smile didn't change but the look in his eyes did a little. "--Velimir. I mean. I."

He was not going to hyperventilate. None of that. He stopped, breathed out all slow.

The last thing he remembered was a handful of oddly disjointed images, the ground from odd angles, the cloudy sky. Too much light, his eyes had hurt.

"... Did I explode?"

The Jäger chortled. "Hyu shore deed."

His accent was bad. Sorin briefly wondered if he was putting it on, too.

"Figures." He closed his eyes for a second, opened them again. "Velimir? -- Do you know him? You've got to, all of you know each other, right? You--"

"Shush. Gonna rip hyu grafts, und de nurses vill stab mine poor buttcheeks again." A snort, and then he relented. "Veli iz reportink to der Generals. He iz fine."

"Oh." Sorin went loose in his bed with relief, noticed a bit late the pressure that put on his injured shoulder. There was no position to be had that wouldn't put strain on one of his burns, though. He grimaced and stayed put.

Velimir was okay.

They'd gotten to Wulfenbach.

"I don't suppose you know what happened to my mother." Or to Rozalia. He supposed he still cared a little bit. He hadn't realized she'd noticed the distance he held her at, the lack of... She _was_ pretty, it just was the kind of knowledge he didn't really care about, and what if it had pushed her toward...

No, he wasn't going to hold himself responsible for this, she wanted to be treated like a grown woman, okay, fine. Besides he didn't know what else he could have done, save from faking attraction better, and that just... No.

He decided then and there that if he did get married it would be to a woman who knew the score and didn't mind. It'd be too unfair otherwise. And if that never happened...

Well. It'd be sad, but less than the other way.

"Sorry, keed. No idea."

Sigh. They were probably alright. They'd been on the other side of... they'd been far away. He thought. "It's fine. Thank you."

He was so tired, and it hurt -- everywhere, relentless. It made it hard to corral his thoughts.

"... I didn't ask your name, did I? I'm Sorin."

"Hm. Hallo, Sorin."

Sorin waited a second, two, turned his head again to blink at him.

"Hyu still haff not asked," the Jäger replied with a what-can-you-do shrug.

"... May I know your name?"

"Shore ken!"

Then nothing but a slow blink and a close-mouthed, vague smile. Sorin's eyes narrowed. "May I pick up a bedpan and _throw it at your head_."

A reluctant laughing snort. "Anton."

" _Thank_ you."

Sorin shifted a bit on his bed. His skin prickled, felt too warm, too tight, like if he shifted too fast it would rip open.

Soft footsteps on the floor. He squinted; a nurse was coming to his bed.

"Hello. Nice to see you awake, Mister Petrescu."

"Oh. I -- have I been asleep long?"

She regarded him like she wasn't sure he could handle the answer and was weighing the decision to tell him. Sorin tried to look calm and levelheaded.

"This'll be your third day on Castle Wulfenbach." A reassuring smile. "We kept you unconscious the first two days, until the skin grafts took."

She checked his wounds, making little noises -- hm, yes, hmmm. Sorin thought about the fact that he'd been burned so badly he'd needed grafts. Wow. Huh. Wasn't so bad he'd been unconscious for it, he supposed.

"It all seems to be taking well so far. I'm going to give you another dose of painkillers--"

"Wait! Uh. I don't -- don't want to sleep yet, I wanted to see, there's someone..." Yeah, there went the blushing.

The nurse was pretending she hadn't noticed. Professional habit, he supposed. "Do you know when they'll visit?"

Sorin threw the Jäger a helpless glance. Anton shrugged.

"Um. No. But could I stay awake another hour, and then if he's not here I'll sleep?"

She was frowning a little. "You do need to rest, and constant pain is not helping you do that. It takes a lot of energy to be in pain, you know." Sorin looked dejectedly at her. He supposed he must still look utterly crappy from the whole ordeal, because she softened. "Half-dose for now? It shouldn't knock you out, but it _will_ relax you. You may doze more easily."

... Well. His burns did hurt a lot. "S'good. Thank you."

She did something to his IV. He waited to feel it.

The nurse turned to fix his sheets, leaned in, whispered, "By the way, if you want a screen you only have to ask. We can't really move you any farther apart, but..."

Sorin blinked, confused for a moment until he figured out she thought he'd have a problem with the neighbor. Who was, uh, several beds away?

"Oh, no. It's fine. I like Jägers." Um. Wait. "I mean. I don't mind them. I mean... I think I know how to handle them by now? Yeah. Thank you."

From the way Anton was staring long-sufferingly at the ceiling, he wanted to be gone just as much as the nurse wanted him out. Also, he could totally hear them.

If he wasn't walking off whatever injury he had, fair bet his legs were actually broken.

The nurse finished fussing, wrote some things on the little notebook thing at the end of his bed, and then left. Sorin waved the tips of his fingers, since he couldn't move his head and his good hand -- which was also his left hand, and he was no southpaw -- suddenly felt pretty heavy.

"So hyu... _like_ der Jägerkin, huh."

Anton wagged his bushy eyebrows at him, hat tilted up almost like a salute to a lady on the street. Sorin pursed his lips.

"I'll tell Veli you're poaching from a brother." Anton blinked. "Your own brother, how could you. For shame."

The Jäger's lips had gone all pinched together. Sorin hoped he did feel properly chastened. Yes. Good.

Then Anton started laughing. Hrrmgh. Hmph.

It was the great belly-laugh kind, too. Jerk. He'd met two of them and he already knew: Jägers were all jerks.

He didn't mind too much.

"So vhen he call hyu his _leedle lava cannon_..."

Sorin sputtered himself awake. "He told you he called me that?!"

"Yes." Three seconds, and Anton burst out laughing again. "Naw. He chust call hyu dat vhen hyu haff de bad dreaming de one time. Grossly cute."

Sorin groaned and tried to sink farther through his pillows. It didn't work. No escape.

Okay. Full speed ahead then. "I rammed a lava engine transport into a lava spewing stone spider and assaulted an agent of the mail with a spanner this week," he said as calmly as he could. "Do not test me."

"Huh."

"I also threw a polecat and a _lot_ of rocks. Do not test me. I will _test you to destruction_."

There was a blissful moment of silence.

"So... Hyu shore hyu iz no madboy, den?"

Sorin considered it. "Nah, I'd have broken through already. Then right now I'd be building bedpans that could throw punches. Pow."

Anton was laughing again. Sorin wasn't sure why. He smiled anyway.

When Velimir walked in fifteen minutes later Sorin was attempting to pull his IV stand closer so he could throw it like a javelin.

"Veli!" Sorin called out. "Help me whack him on the hat. Head. Help me."

Anton just smiled his smug-face stupid smile and waved his fingers. "Hoy dere, leetle brodder."

"Hoy dere, old man." He nodded at Sorin. "Lemme just get a stick thing de nurse won't kill me over, jah?"

"Foul," Anton said, but he almost sounded approving.

Sorin was very disappointed when Velimir just leaned in to punch Anton in the shoulder, and was punched back, because they acted like it was a _greeting_.

After that though Velimir went around to Sorin's bed and dragged over a little chair and sat. Sorin smiled at him.

"Hi."

"Hey. Good to see hyu awake. Hy didn't even have to kiss hyu much."

"You mean I missed kissing?" Sorin said, eyebrows knit in consternation.

Anton made a loud, wet snorting noise. Velimir pursed his glowing lips. "Hy see this is going to be _difficult_."

"Aw, no, kissing is pretty easy..."

"Hy meant de useless lump over dere." Velimir leaned in, kissed him, light but lingering. Sorin smiled until his cheek hurt and he had to stop.

"Ow. Burned all over."

"Manly scars! Very sexy." He sobered up a little. "Hyu momma vanted to be here, but she needed to show de Baron's people where hyu poppa und sister were kept."

"Oh." He hadn't even thought about that. That she would be here, outside of the village. It was... nice? "They did find them, right?"

"Heard nothing about how dey didn't." A little shrug. "De town vas very easy, vith its madgirl caught und trussed up already. No injuries. A few gassed people. Dey wake up fine."

Oh. Good. "... But I didn't testify or anything..."

Velimir caught his good hand, turned it over in his. Sorin's fingers were bruised and scratched up, one of the nails cracked. He hadn't even noticed. "Dey kind of got caught while dey vos trying to kill a Wulfenbach Jäger und a defenseless civilian. Vith veapons dey is not supposed to have. Bit moot."

"...Oh."

"Hyu explosion vas very pretty," he said, a bit quietly. "Very bright. De patrol came to see."

"Oh." Sorin blinked. "Lucky."

"Mm."

He was distracted by Velimir's hand around his. Velimir was rubbing his thumb along the bumpy bits. Knuckles. It felt nice.

"Sveethart." His hand was shaken gently. "Stay awake a little bit longer."

Sorin blinked fuzzily. Huh, his eyes had been closed. "Yeah, okay."

"Hy iz leaving tomorrow."

Sorin didn't want to sleep anymore. He looked up at Velimir, fingers twitching in his hand with the urge to squeeze, reined himself in. He didn't really get to be possessive about Velimir, now did he. His brothers and his Masters, Sorin knew that.

"Going back to your pack?" he asked, trying to sound cheerful, happy for him. "That's. Good, that's good. I bet they missed you."

"Ho yez," Velimir said through a heavy sigh. "They turn de town ve vos in upside down looking for me. Of course, dey found nothing. Thwarted is not a look ve Jägerkin wear pretty."

"... How literally do you mean, they turned it upside down?" Sorin asked, because he figured it was a question he probably should get used to asking.

Or... maybe not. Yeah. Probably not. Anymore. Mmh.

Velimir laughed quietly, pale eyelashes lowered over his eyes. "Only a lot of people shaken by de feet."

"Oh, okay."

"Und a few suspicious houses. Probably. Dat part vos not clear."

"Pff. Heh."

He spent some time looking down at their hands together. At least Velimir wasn't the kind of jerk who'd just stop touching him entirely and let him figure it out, hey, we're over.

Might be easier in the long run if he was, but. Yeah. Sorin wouldn't have liked him so much if he was like that.

And why was he looking behind him? Sorin looked too.

Anton cleared his throat, coughing into his fist. "Oh, yawn. Hy tink Hy vill schleep now. So verra schleepy." He reclined on his pillows and tilted his hat onto his face. "Ho yez, dat is de goot schleep."

Sorin blinked. "Did he actually _say_ yawn. I mean. As a word."

Velimir smiled, shook his head. "Mine brodder, de sub-tle one."

He brought Sorin's hand to his lips to kiss his knuckles, all soft and gentle and suddenly Sorin really wanted to cry. He blamed the drugs.

"Hyu is staying here three weeks," he said. "Mebbe four, if hyu new skin bits are stiff und need to learn to let hyu bend."

Oh, medical news. Sorin wasn't sure why he wasn't letting the nurse tell him. Why the nurse hadn't told him -- maybe she though it was a lot, for his first day?

Pff. She obviously had never thrown a polecat.

"Who's paying for it?" he thought to ask.

"Oh. De Baron sez hyu is hurt in de pursuit of doing right by der Empire. Iz all paid for. Dey haff a law for that." Velimir grinned brightly. "Und hyu get sum nice money for de vital informeshun, too!"

"Oh. Huh." Sorin considered it. Surprise money was always nice. "Do we share the reward or--"

" _Sorin_." Velimir gave him a stern look. "Iz mine _job_. Hy do not need reward for mine job." A short pause, and then he winked. "Plus Hy is not punished for deserting mine posting. Iz all canceled out."

"Oh, good."

He was saying 'oh' kind of a lot. His brain didn't want to give him anything else. He shifted his weight a bit; his burns threw a nice stab of pain at him.

"--Oh. What about your arm?" He hadn't even -- he looked down at Veli's arm but it was in a normal sleeve and not in a sling at all. "Are you -- is it healed?"

"Mostly? Sorin, listen, Hy vos trying to tell hyu--"

"You have to be a bit careful, okay, burns hurt really a lot and wow, I wasn't appreciating that properly before. I've had a lot of spark burns, but nothing so large and deep. Really, wow. Drugs are nice. So nice. I'm sorry you didn't have any." He made himself smile. "But if you're better now, I guess--"

"Sorin!"

He fell silent, bowed his neck a little. It hurt too much to do it as far as he wanted.

He didn't want to listen to whatever it was Velimir thought he needed to be all gentle and careful about. Wasn't like there were a lot of possibilities.

Velimir took in a long, slow breath, and sighed it all out. "Sveetie. Look up? Hey." He leaned in, forehead to forehead, hat tilted up so the brim was resting on Sorin's head. "Hy iz back in three weeks for troop rotation. Guard duty. Hyu vant to meet?"

"Oh," Sorin said, very originally.

His eyes had gone twice as prickly. He was getting mood whiplash, only the drugs wouldn't let him. It was very strange.

"Like a friend thing, or like a booty call thing, or like a date?"

Velimir blinked, long pale lashes covering warm brown eyes. His nose scales wrinkled up a little. He'd shaved recently, chin all neat and soft-looking and Sorin was realizing his own face was a week unshaved. "Uh. Like... all of de above?"

Anton had tilted his hat back to stare imploringly at the ceiling, hands held together in prayer. He looked like he was praying for patience more than anything else.

Along the edge of the door Sorin could see another three or four heads peering in, jostling each other for position. One of them had fallen to the floor, and apparently decided to stay there.

Velimir wanted to keep on seeing him. At least once? Maybe -- maybe more, later, but _how_ if Sorin was going back home and --

Going back home to an occupied town. Huh. He wondered if they'd leave a squad of Jägers there, or just have them drop by for patrols every so often...

And at least it didn't look like his brothers would be the jealous type.

And Velimir was still waiting, ears flopped back unsure and a bit sad. Sorin squeezed his hand. "Okay. Yeah. That would be good."

He grinned. His cheek hurt. (He'd have a scar. Oh well. He had it on good authority that it would look sexy.)


	9. Chapter 9

Sorin finished trimming the animal's leftmost hoof, and checked the still-hot miniature horseshoe against its toe. Good, the last tempering had done the trick. The two fingers wouldn't catch against each other. He plunged the horseshoe in the tub of water to cool it and applied it to the hoof. 

He still wasn't sure why the beast needed shoeing at all, but a paying job was a paying job. He hammered the first nail in. The rhinorse huffed through its nose and ate some more of the feed its owner was shoveling at it. 

At least the local Spark was making useful animals? Relatively. That horn looked pretty nasty.

"So glad you took it on, Mister Petrescu," the customer was saying. "Raida only trampled Master Lupei a little bit and now he won't touch her at all!"

Sorin hummed an acknowledgement. The beast was well-secured, and anyway they had an agreement. That agreement was that the beast stayed in its harness and Sorin didn't thwap it on the snout with the decisiveness and strength he normally reserved for Jägermonsters.

"And if I could have another two sets of shoes, for after you've gone, unless you mean to stay...?"

Sorin shook his head, more to dislodge a long curly lock that had fallen out of his hat than to communicate. "I'll be gone long before she needs shoed again, ma'am. Might come back this way but probably not for a couple of years. I'll make you shoes, that should be easy now that I have the shapes down."

Now whether she'd manage to convince a farrier to _use_ them, nothing was less certain.

Mrs. Ungur craned her neck to look into the wagon over her animal's massive haunch.

"And where might you have found this clever little forge? I haven't seen you put any coal in it at all!"

Sorin shrugged, hid a smile under his hat. "My sweetie got it for me, for making journeyman. It was, what, six years ago? I haven't had a problem with it since. Good, solid work. I'd recommend it to everyone but I don't think they're for sale right now."

"She must be rich!" Mrs. Ungur said, suitably impressed. "Is this a one-off Spark piece?"

"Mm. It's a prototype." He finished hammering in the last nail, manipulated the beast's hoof-toes to check that they could glide past each other easily, without pinching. Seemed to work! He allowed the beast to put its leg back down. It tested its weight on it placidly, still chewing.

"Still, it must have cost a fortune!"

... Well. Veli had kind of liberated it from the Baron's son's lab when the lad got bored of it and went down another avenue of research. But Sorin had been told repeatedly that it would just have been destroyed otherwise so it was only a very little bit like a theft.

Anyway, Sorin had gotten burned up by one of the forge-cum-lava engine-cum-lava sprayer's ancestors, so he completely deserved payment in kind.

"Not that much. Alright, I'm done!" He patted down his apron for hoof shavings. "Let's just walk her around a bit to check her gait, and she should be good to go."

Mrs. Ungur did so. Sorin stood back and watched. Looked fine to him. The beast was thick and massive and moved with ponderous, deceptive slowness, though he'd heard it was like a train with cut brakes rolling downslope once it was started. At any rate, it walked easily enough, with no visible hesitation.

"But isn't it hard on the both of you that you travel so much?" Mrs. Ungur asked as she passed by. "Once a year visits are such a strain on relationships!"

Sorin smiled blandly. "No need to worry, he travels a lot too, we cross paths about once every two months. It's pretty nice. And I think your Raida is good to go! Now about payment..."

He'd been right. Ushering her off was much easier when she was flustered speechless. He swept his area and sorted out his wagon, humming. Specialty work brought in a nice bit of money, never mind that he'd only learned how to do a farrier's job relatively late, hands-on. It wasn't all he did, and he usually got the strange, unique jobs that only widened his range of experience.

It also helped that he didn't have to rent or buy a smithy.

Velimir _was_ due for a visit, but he was only two days late; Sorin wouldn't start to wonder until he made it to a week. Things happened, out in the wastelands, in the Baron's service. What Sorin avoided traveling with caravans and surrounding his camps with lava moats, Velimir went looking for. Enthusiastically.

At least this town gave all the signs of actually being nice and sleepy, its local Spark the protégé of the Duke and not the Duke himself, and the Spark seemed happy with his ameliorated animals. The Duke himself was even-handed, with a light touch. The people said good things about him, and none of it came accompanied with forced smiles and nervous looks. Sorin wasn't going to send off any letter to the Baron's secret services this time around.

Time to go look for dinner. He took off his apron, put it away inside the wagon, started locking up.

He was grabbed by the hips and whirled around -- thrown in the air -- grabbed right back, and kissed right there in the middle of the street, back pressed against his wagon.

"Mmph -- Veli?"

The space under their hats was lit up green. Sorin stared, a bit speechless. His lover's face was...

Wide, manic eyes. A grin so huge it looked like he wanted to swallow Sorin whole.

He was doing a shuddery-silent almost-laugh thing that Sorin usually associated with nervous breakdowns. His eyes were wet.

Sorin's calm, patient, playful lover looked half-crazed. For a second Sorin couldn't tell if it was with heartbreak or with glee, and then he realized.

"You found one."

Velimir laughed, breathless, incredulous. "Yes!"

Twenty years. _Twenty years_. And there was a Heterodyne again.

"Hy iz gonna haff to take a long rain check, so sorry, Hy luff hyu -- _love_ you, Hy do, gotta go--"

Sorin pressed a hand against his cheek. Velimir breathed out all shuddery, leaned his face into his palm.

"No problem. Mechanicsburg, eh?" Sorin smiled, he couldn't help it. Velimir had waited for so long. "Might get there sometime in the next three months..."

"Dat vould be good. Very good. Hy--"

"Veli!" someone else yelled from a nearby roof. "Hurry op! Vhat is hyu doink, ve iz leavink -- oh, hey, Sorin. Hi!"

"Hey, Teodor," Sorin returned.

The Jäger waved back politely and started running in place on the roof. "Vell, kees him und ve ken _go!_ "

"Hoy!" Velimir retorted, and turned to Sorin pouting, though that lasted all of three seconds before he was smiling again, sheepish, rueful. Sorin laughed at him. Nicely, even, mostly. Then he kissed him first, because Veli was an idiot like that.

The passion in the kiss left him a bit breathless, even if he knew that most of the intensity was for the new Heterodyne, not for desire of him. He found himself pretty okay with it. Sorin had his own life to lead, and seeing Veli so happy just... It made him happy, too.

And Veli had made a detour to tell him. Hadn't forgotten even a little. Even now he was making his friend late telling Sorin.

Sorin pushed him off, laughing, slapped his shoulder lightly. "Well, what are you waiting for, go!"

Velimir gave him an incandescent grin and hopped straight up to the roof of the wagon.

"Hy introduce hyu later vhen hyu come by!" he yelled as he got ready to leap to the nearest house.

Sorin blinked. "To the Heterodyne?"

"Vell, ov _course!_ "

Sorin looked up at his Jägermonster lover, perched like a gargoyle on the traveling forge Sorin regularly drove through the wastelands -- precautions or not -- and thought about whether he really wanted to meet the scion of one of the most powerful and definitely the most unhinged lineage of ruling Sparks ever, and went, "...You know what, why the hell not."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Flashover](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3330521) by [adiduck (book_people)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/book_people/pseuds/adiduck)
  * [Positive Charge](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3393032) by [adiduck (book_people)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/book_people/pseuds/adiduck)
  * [Short Circuit](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3939154) by [adiduck (book_people)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/book_people/pseuds/adiduck)
  * [Shock Hazard](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4484147) by [adiduck (book_people)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/book_people/pseuds/adiduck)
  * [Static Cling](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4546842) by [adiduck (book_people)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/book_people/pseuds/adiduck)
  * [Atmospheric Electricity](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4676600) by [adiduck (book_people)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/book_people/pseuds/adiduck)
  * [Grounding](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5683177) by [adiduck (book_people)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/book_people/pseuds/adiduck)




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